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Old and Naughty British Postcards

Those were the days. Just good old saucy fun! Where have all the postcards gone.....

16-Year-Old Dies In Tragic Bowflex Exercise Accident

There aren't too many details on just how 16-year-old Justin Butler got entangled in his Bowflex exercise machine, but we do know that the incident, unfortunately, led to his death.

Authorities did reveal that they don't believe this to be a case of intentional self-harm. Instead it's simply a very tragic accident which ended with Butler's parents finding their son in a terrible condition and the young man dying in a hospital the next day.
After the initial and vague news release from the Nevada County Sheriff's department was posted, Butler's uncle, Bill Buus, chose to speak out about the incident and shed more light on the death.

According to Buus, the tragedy was the result of a choking game. Such "games" are intended to produce a natural high of sorts and usually something we hear about only in the occasional sensational news stories intended to frighten parents, but a report in the Sacremento Bee reveals how they led to Butler's death:

Buus said his nephew was playing the "choking game." The CDC reports that in such an activity young people either choke each other or use a noose to choke themselves. Butler's parents have since discovered that other teens in the community are also playing the game that led to their son's death, Buss said.

The CDC reports that participants either pass out, which can lead to serious injury, or die from hanging or strangulation.
Buss confirmed that the teen choked himself by using a strap anchored on a piece of exercise equipment. He said the strap was part of the exercise apparatus. Please understand that this additional information came from Butler's family in an attempt to raise awareness of what occurred and to perhaps save another child's life.

Children Born by IVF Perform Above Average on Standardized Tests Compared to Their Peers, Study Suggests

Children conceived by in vitro fertilization (IVF) perform at least as well as their peers on academic tests at all ages from grade 3 to 12, according to a new University of Iowa study.
In fact, the study, published in the October issue of the journal Human Reproduction, found that children who were conceived by IVF actually scored better than age- and gender-matched peers on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the Iowa Test for Educational Development (ITBS/ED).
"Our findings are reassuring for clinicians and patients as they suggest that being conceived through IVF does not have any detrimental effects on a child's intelligence or cognitive development," said lead study author Bradley Van Voorhis, M.D., UI professor of obstetrics and gynecology and director of the Center for Advanced Reproductive Care at UI Hospitals and Clinics.
To investigate whether being conceived by IVF had long-term negative effects on children's cognitive development, Van Voorhis and colleagues compared the academic performance of 423 Iowa children, ages 8 to 17, who were conceived by IVF at UI Hospitals and Clinics with the performance of 372 age- and gender-matched peers from the same Iowa schools. The researchers also analyzed whether different characteristics of the children, parents or IVF methods affected children's test scores.
The study found that children born by IVF performed above average on standardized tests compared to their peers, and that a number of factors were linked to higher test scores, including older age of the mother, higher education levels of both parents and lower levels of divorce.
Importantly, the study also showed that different IVF procedures -- using fresh versus frozen embryos -- and different methods of insemination had no effect on children's test scores.
Although the study was not able to fully explain why children conceived by IVF performed better that their peers, Van Voorhis speculated that parents of children conceive by IVF might be older and have higher levels of education than average.
"By using age- and gender-matched children from the same classrooms as a control group to compare to our study participants, we attempted to control for any socioeconomic or environmental differences between the children born by IVF and their peers," Van Voorhis said. "But there still may have been some differences between the IVF children and the controls that we could not see from our data."
Among children born by IVF, the researchers did find a potentially concerning trend toward worse test scores for multiple births -- single babies performed better than twins, who performed better than triplets. However, this trend was not statistically significant and the triplets still did better that the average score of non-IVF children.
"This trend fits with our thinking that singleton births are healthier than multiple births, but we would need further study to find out if this trend is a real effect," Van Voorhis said.
IVF is generally considered safe but the technology has only been used for about 30 years, so there is a lack of data on long-term health outcomes for children conceived this way.
The UI study is the largest to date and followed children to an older age than previous studies. Additional strengths of the study included having a suitable control group and using the ITBS/ED, which is a widely accepted, objective measure of educational outcomes.

Graphene Just Won Two Guys the Nobel. So What the Hell Is It?

Today, two professors won the Nobel prize for physics "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene." The Nobel is the Olympic gold of science. But what is graphene, and why did it earn these guys over a million bucks?

Some Nobels in physics are (relatively) straightforward. In 1935, James Chadwick discovered the neutron. A huge deal, of course, but something you can understand by 11th grade. But today's award—presented to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov—is for a two-dimensional material. A what? Not exactly high school stuff. So let's break it down.

Graphene is, put most simply, carbon atoms—the same stuff in your pencil—arranged in linked hexagons. (Fun fact: the pair started their work with graphene by peeling off layers of actual pencil lead with scotch tape). This doesn't sound like anything special, except for the fact that, as Geim himself explains, "Everything in our three-dimensional world has a width, length and height. That was what we thought, at least." Geim and Novoselov's work expands our understanding of materials that don't have any of these dimensional properties, because they are only one atom thick. They are lacking an entire dimension.

It's hard to imagine—but that's sort of the point. The duo's work is on the frontier of an entire class of stuff that we're only just now starting to be able to conceive of. Geim himself says he has no idea the extent to which a material such as graphene could be useful. But we do know that it is super cool. Despite (or rather, because of) its measly two-dimensionality, graphene is the strongest and thinnest substance in the known universe, can be stretched like rubber, and is impregnable by liquid or gas. It also conducts electricity, allowing it to (someday) beat the pants off the copper and silicon we use in, well, pretty much everything. Still unimpressed? A layer of graphene could hold up a truck atop a pencil. You don't look so great now, do you, neutron.

So what's next? "Optimists say we are entering a carbon age. Even pessimists argue only that the impact will be somewhat less," says Geim, who is, naturally, excited: "I hope that graphene and other two-dimensional crystals will change everyday life as plastics did for humanity." So we'll have to wait and see, but still—job well done, gents

A Growing Array of Options for Fibroids

Not so long ago, women typically had babies in their 20s, developed fibroids in their 30s and underwent hysterectomies in their 40s. For most, at least, that was the typical progression. But these days, as more women hold demanding jobs, many delay childbearing — and most expect more say in their health care. Hysterectomy is just one choice in a growing menu of treatments for uterine fibroids, one of the most common and least discussed of female afflictions.
Several procedures, each new one less invasive than the last, have become available in the last decade, enabling women to avoid major surgery, protect their fertility and return to work within days rather than weeks.
With myomectomy, for example, doctors cut out the fibroids but leave the uterus intact. A technique called uterine artery embolization shrinks fibroids by blocking their blood supply. And with M.R.I.-guided ultrasound, tightly focused ultrasound beams zap fibroids, using magnetic resonance imaging to guide the process.
Moreover, new medicines are in development, including a class of drugs called progesterone receptor modulators that may shrink fibroids without inducing menopause and bone loss, as existing medications do.
All the new treatments, as well as more sophisticated diagnostic techniques, are part of a growing interest in a condition long considered too unpleasant and embarrassing to talk about, even though nearly three-quarters of women are affected.
“Because fibroids are benign, we overlook the significant burden on health,” said Dr. Barbara J. Davis of Millennium Pharmaceuticals, a drug researcher who was the principal investigator for the Fibroid Growth Study, a four-year project tracking 100 women that was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. The study is one of several reflecting increased interest in, and financing for, fibroid research in the past decade. Although the study is finished, the results are still being analyzed.
Fibroids, which are abnormal, multishaped growths of tissue and fat, appear in only one place in the body: the uterus. The tumors are almost always benign but can grow to the size of a football and cause menstrual bleeding and pelvic pain so severe that some women plan their schedules around their monthly periods. The excessive bleeding is not only disruptive but can also lead to anemia.
Depending on their size and location, fibroids can also reduce fertility by as much as 70 percent and and cause several obstetric complications, including premature birth.
Though scientists still do not know what causes fibroids, they believe the answer will not only lead to new treatments for the disease but also shed light on the origins of cancer.
“If we could understand why fibroids remain benign even though they’re so prevalent and so large, we might be able to learn something about how to stop malignant tumors,” said Cheryl Walker, a researcher at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Texas. Her lab discovered fibroids in a species of rodent called the Eker rat that turned out to be remarkably similar to those found in humans.
“Mother Nature gave us a wonderful model,” said Dr. Walker, who is continuing to study the genetic makeup of the rats’ fibroids as well as their response to potential drugs.
In both Eker rats and humans, pregnancy appears to protect against fibroids. That supports one theory that modern women may be suffering more from the benign tumors than their ancestors, who spent most of their short lives either pregnant or nursing, with fewer menstrual cycles and less hormonal fluctuation to disturb the uterus.
“I call it my broken light bulb hypothesis,” said Dr. Elizabeth A. Stewart, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Mayo Clinic. “If you keep flicking it on and off it will eventually blow.”
Though hysterectomy remains the only foolproof cure for fibroids, alternative treatments continue to gain popularity and surgical techniques continue to be refined. Myomectomy, for example, once required surgery to open up the abdomen. Today it can be done laparoscopically, through a small incision into the navel, or hysteroscopically, by vaginally inserting a telescope through the cervix and into the uterus.
Uterine artery embolization, originally used to treat postpartum hemorrhage, was introduced in the United States in 1997 after first being used for fibroids in France. The patient is sedated, a catheter is inserted into her groin, and tiny plastic pellets are blown in until they plug up the blood vessels feeding the fibroids. The patient is usually released after an overnight stay at the hospital, followed by a week of rest at home.
Once the fibroids are deprived of blood, they usually shrink within a few menstrual cycles. Symptoms like pain, bleeding and frequent urination ease in 85 to 95 percent of patients, said Dr. James B. Spies of Georgetown University, an interventional radiologist who has performed the procedures on thousands of patients, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
“She went back to work in something like three days, which wasn’t my recommendation, but she’s a very dynamic person,” Dr. Spies said.
In M.R.I.-guided ultrasound, the newest and least invasive of the procedures, tightly focused ultrasound waves burn up the fibroids “like a magnifying glass with the sun’s rays,” said Dr. James Segars, head of fibroid research for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. During the outpatient procedure, the woman lies inside an M.R.I. tube, while the images help the doctor focus high-intensity beams on her fibroids.
A big caveat to all these new treatments is that the fibroids can grow back, prompting the need for more procedures. And because the techniques are still so new, their effect on fertility, despite preserving the uterus, is not yet known.
Still, most experts agree that they represent a huge boon to millions of women who have been suffering in silence.
“This is an incredibly interesting disease,” Dr. Walker said. “It’s the elephant in the room in that it has a huge impact on women’s lives, yet you almost don’t hear it discussed because it’s not cancer.”

By LESLIE BERGER, NYT