Green Tea Consumption and Mortality

The Ohsaki National Health Insurance Cohort Study, a population-based, prospective cohort study initiated in 1994 among 40 530 Japanese adults aged 40 to 79 years without history of stroke, coronary heart disease, or cancer at baseline. Participants were followed upfor up to 11 years (1995-2005) for all-cause mortality and for up to 7 years (1995-2001) for cause-specific mortality.

Conclusion: Green tea consumption is associated with reduced mortality due to all causes and due to cardiovascular disease but not with reduced mortality due to cancer.

New High-Resolution Camera Nears Reality

Three years ago, the artist Clifford Ross unveiled the R1, a still camera of his own design and construction—a Rube Goldberg assemblage of cadged and commissioned parts. Although it used film, it captured far more detail than any other camera, digital or not; the resolution was five hundred times as high as that of your run-of-the-mill digital point-and-click. In Ross’s giant landscapes, you can make out the woodgrains on barn shingles thousands of feet away, and see mountain trails seven miles off. The pictures seem to be made not of pixels but of vision itself. The camera, called the R-1 (R for Ross), looks oddly rigged, like something out of Dr. Seuss, and almost like an antique viewfinder camera on legs. In fact, Mr. Ross pulls a cloth over his head and the back of his contraption when he takes a picture. But with this camera that he concocted out of 60-year-old camera parts, mirrors, a microscope and other items – none of them digital – Mr. Ross produces what experts say are some of the highest-resolution landscape photographs ever made. The R1 – the R is for Ross – is similar to the accordion-style view cameras used in the 19th century. It is built around the body of a World War II-era camera originally designed to take pictures from thousands of feet in the air. Mirrors, vacuum pumps and a microscope help focus the image precisely. But when Ross’ 9-inch-by-18-inch negatives are digitally scanned, the result is decidedly high-tech. Each image yields a 2.6-gigabyte file – huge for a single image. A vacuum pump ensures that the film is flat to within one-thousandth of an inch, and a dual-mirror device keeps the film parallel to the lens. Sand bags strapped to the camera and tripod prevent the machine from shifting, and a reinforced aluminum cradle maintains the parts of the camera in perfect alignment. Because the camera uses film meant for aerial shots, its negatives must be chemically treated to reduce their unusually high degree of contrast. The process is so lengthy that the one-time painter can produce only five to eight images a year.

Before long, Ross began conceiving a successor to the R1. Behold the R2. The R2 is a high-resolution digital video camera that shoots in three hundred and sixty degrees. Specifically, it is a bouquet of nine cameras, nine mirrors, and nine microphones, arrayed in a circle and mounted on a tripod; it resembles a lunar module, or an apocalyptic explosive device. What Ross has in mind is a cyclorama—a theatre in the round, which would, he hopes, vastly improve on the one at Epcot. In the cyclorama you’d have to choose which section of the screen to watch. Ross pointed to the parapet of the Belvedere Castle, a couple of hundred yards away, and said, “Imagine if you could go over there and see, say, a murder, or two people falling in love—or have multiple narratives going on at once.” http://www.cliffordross.com

Braves eliminated from postseason

Braves manager Bobby Cox will have to find something else to do now when the postseason starts. Atlanta’s streak of 14 straight postseason appearances ended with a 9-8 loss Sunday to the Colorado Rockies. Atlanta had won 14 straight division titles heading into this season. The loss to the Rockies combined with the Phillies’ 10-7 win over Florida eliminated Atlanta from the wild-card race with six games left. Fourteen straight division titles, a model of consistency that has never been matched. And we’re not just talking baseball here. Even if you throw football, basketball and hockey into the mix, the Braves are still in a league of their own – a glaring lack of postseason success notwithstanding. From Sid Bream to Andres Galarraga to Adam LaRoche, from Lonnie Smith to Gary Sheffield to Jeff Francoeur, from Steve Avery to Greg Maddux to Tim Hudson, the Braves always found a way to finish on top at the end of the regular season. Someday, once the pain has worn off a bit and there’s time for reflection, the Braves will come to grips with the enormity of their accomplishment. They’ll look at all those pennants attached to the facade above the left-field stands at Turner Field and realize just how remarkable it was to win 14 division titles, all in a row. For perspective, the Braves claimed the first division title the same year as the Gulf War. The Braves were still winning when the second George Bush sent the U.S. military back into Iraq.  Along the way, the Braves switched from the NL West to the East, the Olympics came to Atlanta, a president was impeached, O.J. Simpson was acquitted in the trial of the century, a nifty little tool called the Internet became part of everyday life, and two gleaming towers in the heart of New York City were sent crashing to the ground on 9/11. The Streak came in all shapes and sizes. The Braves won the first one with Deion Sanders as their leadoff hitter on opening day and a payroll of just over $21 million; a dozen years later, they kept it going with a team that doled out more than $100 million in salaries. They won three times by a single game; five times, they coasted to the finish with a double-digit comfort zone. They won with as many as 106 victories; they won with as few as 88. They won with Smoltz putting up 24 victories as a starter; they won with him saving 55 games out of the bullpen. They won while their home was that cookie cutter of a stadium known as Fulton County; they won after moving across the street to “the Ted” in 1997. “It does feel as bad as I thought it would,” said Smoltz, who pitched the clincher for the first division title in 1991, was still around for No. 14 last season and now gets saddled with being part of the team that broke up the amazing run. “Not the fact that we’re not in. It’s the fact that we’re not even close.”

Cancer docs profit from chemotherapy drugs

It is a unique situation in medicine: Unlike other kinds of doctors, cancer doctors are allowed to profit from the sale of chemotherapy drugs. “The significant amount of our revenue comes from the profit, if you will, that we make from selling the drugs,” says Dr. Peter Eisenberg, a private physician who specializes in cancer treatment. Doctors in other specialties simply write prescriptions. But oncologists make most of their income by buying drugs wholesale and selling them to patients at marked up prices. Ethicists see a potential for conflict of interest. “They might have a preference to give you the one that they’re going to make the most money from,” says Arthur Caplan with the University of Pennsylvania Center of Bioethics. This unique payment system started years ago because Medicare and insurers wanted to save money by moving cancer treatments out of the hospital. But it has come under increasing scrutiny as prices for some cancer drugs skyrocketed to tens of thousands of dollars a year. Dr. Eisenberg, like many of his colleagues, does not like the system. “Patients should feel that their physician has their best interest at heart, always,” he says. “And the way the system is set up, because of the incentives, does something to destroy that.” Three years ago the government tried to fix the system by cutting back on the amount doctors got for the drugs and trying to find ways to pay the doctors more for other services, like spending time with the patients. But many experts say the underlying problems remain — with the potential for patients to get expensive drugs for the wrong reasons.

The Death of the Scientific Paper

The scientific manuscript as we know it has outlived its usefulness. Although the basic currency of science is the research article, the fruits of modern laboratory research are often incompatible with the aliquot suitable for publication in a scientific manuscript. Genome-scale inquiry and high-throughput experimentation yield enormous data sets, straining the established article framework; meanwhile, isolated findings or negative results are seldom published at all. Further, it has become obvious that preserving data in its native digital format – with search, annotation, and update capabilities – is desirable. Databases are already the primary form of information storage and access for genomics and protein structure research. The various shortcomings of the article format have been quietly patched with other modes of communication. The typical reader scans general information first – press coverage, textbooks, and high-level descriptions – before exploring in greater detail through PubMed abstracts, conference presentations, and online data sets.

Man rejects first penis transplant

Chinese surgeons have performed the world’s first penis transplant on a man whose organ was damaged beyond repair in an accident this year. The incident left the man with a 1cm-long stump with which he was unable to urinate or have sexual intercourse. “His quality of life was affected severely,” said Dr Weilie Hu, a surgeon at Guangzhou General Hospital.

Doctors spent 15 hours attaching a 10cm penis to the 44-year-old patient after the parents of a brain-dead man half his age agreed to donate their son’s organ. The procedure, described in a case study due to appear in the journal European Urology next month, represents a big leap forward in transplant surgery; it required complex microsurgery to connect nerves and tiny blood vessels. The surgical team claims the operation was a success. After 10 days, tests revealed the organ had a rich blood supply and the man was able to urinate normally.

Naan

To my elitist roommates who think that I am crazy for thinking naan is shaped in a circle and can be cooked without a tandoor oven: Check out this wikipedia article discussing naan. You will notice that naan is described as a “round” flat-bread. Traditionally naan is shaped in a distinct teardrop shape (neither oval or circle); however, if you do a google image search on naan, you will find pictures of the bread in all three shapes (more circles than ovals or teardrops). Although I haven’t researched the specific shape-preferences of naan producing regions, the point is that you should not look at your roommate with an elitist eye when he says he has been served naan in a circle shape. More than anything, it seems like shape is determined by the chef’s personal preference. Furthermore, you will find in this article, and in almost any other recipe for naan, that it is common to cook homemade naan in a pan in the absence of a tandoor oven. This is not to say it will be equal in taste to naan cooked in a tandoor; but we cook hamburgers and shish kabobs on the Foreman in the absence of a Big Green Egg eh? And lastly, you will find that naan is consistently compared to pita bread in almost any description you find on the internet. This is not to claim that naan is pita bread or that it has the same ingredients as pita bread, but simply that you should not look upon your roommate with an elitist eye when he speaks of the similarities of the two breads.

Classic McEnroe

With the new Hawk-Eye Tennis Officiating System we will probably never again see great moments in tennis like this. During his career, John McEnroe won seven Grand Slam singles titles: three at Wimbledon and four at the US Open. He is remembered for his shot-making artistry and supreme volleying; for his matches against Björn Borg; for his fiery on-court temperament, which frequently landed him in trouble with umpires and tennis authorities; and for the catchphrase “You cannot be serious!” directed toward an umpire during a match at Wimbledon in the 1980s. More recently, you have heard him as an announcer during US Open coverage the past two weeks.

Other fish to fry

A study in the journal Nature reported that up to 90 percent of the stocks of the ocean’s major predators (Atlantic cod and bluefin tuna to name two) have been wiped out. The farmed fish we eat in the West are carnivores. Raising carnivores like salmon requires the capture of wild prey fish that wild fish also consume. By eating farmed carnivores we rob Peter to pay Paul, stealing the food source for wild fish and feeding them to farmed. There are, however, species of vegetarian fish that grow well in captivity like tilapia, carp and catfish. Because these fish generally eat lower on the food chain, they are often lower in PCB’s and methyl mercury.

Don’t eat the cheap fish. Once upon a time, we had more fish than we knew what to do with. But decades of overfishing drove us to eat through our fish surpluses and we must now import the majority of our seafood, much of which is supplied by international conglomerates that use unsustainable fishing practices. The modern commercial fishing vessel is most often a trawler – a large ship that pulls weighted nets along the seafloor, destroying all flora and fauna in its path. This practice does not have to continue. A new generation of hook-and-line fishermen is offering an alternative to trawl-caught fish. Line-caught fish cost more, sometimes twice the price of trawl-caught fish. But shouldn’t we be willing to pay more for the chance to eat a truly undomesticated creature?

Don’t eat the big fish. Dining on a 500-pound bluefin tuna is the seafood equivalent of driving a Hummer. Ten pounds of little fish are required to produce one pound of bluefin and all the pollutants contained in a tuna’s prey “bio-concentrate” in a tuna’s flesh, making it a particularly compromised animal, chemically speaking. Sardines, mackerel and most fish that are shorter in total length than the diameter of a dinner plate are generally safer to eat.

Saddleback Caterpillar Moth

This is the species of caterpillar we found on the house palm next to the La-Z-Boy in our living room. There was a family of 5 colonizing the plant. Peter removed the invaders while Wooten danced around the plant in fear. I thought I may have been stung by one of these guys earlier in the week, but from the description it sounds like it must have been something else.

The poisonous hairs or spins are hollow and connected to underlying poison glands. Contact with them causes a burning sensation and inflammation that can be as painful as a bee sting. The irritation can last for a day or two and may be accompanied by nausea during the first few hours. Usually the site of contact reddens and swells much like a bee sting. A person “stung” by a poisonous caterpillar should immediately wash the affected area to remove any insect hairs and poison that remain. An ice pack will help reduce swelling, and creams and lotions containing steroids will lessen the discomfort and promote healing. Persons known to be sensitive to insect stings should consult a physician. Stinging caterpillars rarely occur in sufficient numbers to be considered plant pests, but people who work with ornamental plants should learn to recognize them and avoid touching them.