LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - The advocacy group backed a Change.org petition started by Will Oliver, a 20-year-old gay Eagle Scout, that calls on Nat Geo to air a disclaimer clarifying the network's views before each episode of its new series, "Are You Tougher than a Boy Scout." It debuts this spring.
"That National Geographic would brush aside countless gay teens suffering at the hands of the BSA, shrugging off injustice as just another ?point of view,' is irresponsible," GLAAD president Herndon Graddick said in a statement. "By airing this program, National Geographic is providing support and publicity to an organization that harms young people simply because of who they are. If the network is truly committed to standing by its non-discrimination practices, it should have no problem airing a disclaimer to that effect."
Nat Geo did not immediately respond to calls from TheWrap requesting comment.
But in a statement to GLAAD, the network said the show has "nothing to do with this debate" over the Boy Scouts' LGBT policies.
"As it relates to our upcoming show with the Boy Scouts, we certainly appreciate all points of view on the topic," Nat Geo said in the statement, "but when people see our show they will realize it has nothing to do with this debate, and is in fact a competition series between individual scouts and civilians."
GLADD pointed to the Boy Scouts' October 2012 Progress Report of its National Council Strategic Plan 2011-2015. It cites the Nat Geo series as a "strategic partnership" aimed at promoting the idea that "scouting is ?cool' with youth."
The report states that the Scouts will begin working on marketing plans with National Geographic for "leveraging the show with Scouting audiences and audiences outside of scouting."
"It's all too clear that this show is just a marketing ploy, crafted by the BSA to boost dwindling membership and distract Americans from the Scouts' long history of discrimination," Graddick said. "National Geographic Channel is the means to that end and must therefore make it clear where the network stands."
The ability to "Star" messages in Gmail is an awesome way to remind you to follow up on them, but you still have to remember to actually look at your list. Technology blog Digital Inspiration created a simple script that sends you a daily newsletter with 10 random messages from your starred folder.
The script sends you an email every morning with the starred emails in your inbox that need your attention. It selects them randomly from your entire starred pool so you get a nice assortment each time. All you need to do is copy this Google Sheet, select Gmail > Initialize, and follow the directions. Head over to Digital Inspiration for the full guide to installing the reminder newsletter, as well as uninstall instructions, and ways to edit it to monitor other folders. This certainly isn't the only way to remind yourself to follow up on an email, Boomerang, FollowUp, and FollowUpThen all do a similar thing. What's nice about this script is that it works inside of Google system without the need for extra tools, and the somewhat random nature keeps you on your toes.
Get a Reminder to Follow-up your Starred E-mails in Gmail | Digital Inspiration
We?ve had a lot of really excellent entries in the Family Travel Photo Competition, and it hasn?t been easy whittling it down to this final batch of photos. Check out these amazing shots, then cast your votein the poll below. If you have an entry here, then by all means get your friends-and-relations, your neighbors, hairdresser, supermarket baggers, anyone and everyone to cast a vote for your photo!
Without further ado, the finalists:
This first one comes from Lindsey at Magic Details Travel. Lindsey was playing around with her camera?s filters when she took this shot of her husband and son at Epcot?s Italy Pavilion. A very sweet photo.
Dad and son at Disney World
Kamala has just started her blog, so be sure to check out Shmamaland and show her some love, because she takes amazing photos. In fact, she sent in so many great shots that I couldn?t narrow it down to just one.
This first is of her daughter, jumping from a boat on Lake Mead, Nevada.
Girl jumping in water
This one is of all three of her kids, at Humboldt Lagoons State Park, California.
Faces in a doorway
This next one was sent in by Lynn, whose marvelous Wanderlynn blog explores ?living overseas as a military family or as a stay-at-home-sometimes-solo mom,? as well as travel and a great deal else. Lynn snapped this shot with her iPhone when her family was taking a walk in a field in the English countryside. Their son ran up to their dog Plato to give him a hug. Very cute.
Boy hugging dog
Family Nomadic follows the adventures and misadventures of an American stay-at-home dad living in Sweden.? This shot was taken at a nature reserve during the Christmas holidays, where ?the world was enshrined in frost and a heavy fog hung low as the late northern sun rose behind myself and my two boys.? A lovely, evocative photo.
Dad and sons in wintery mist
Tom, a writer/photographer who pens The Palladian Traveler, submitted this gorgeous photo taken in the Parco Natzionle dei Monti Sibilini? in the Umbria region of Central Italy. He writes: ?The entire high altitude valley becomes a marvel during the late May-June period when the ground bursts with unbelievable color as wild flowers, poppies and rapeseed collide as far as the eye can see.?
Wildflowers and clouds, Italy
Jeffrey?s family seems to get around quite a bit, and they spent several months in Budapest a couple of years ago. He sent in a number of great photos, but this shot of his son silhouetted against a stained glass window?inside Sainte Chapelle in Paris was my favorite.
Profile and stained glass
I have no idea how Lisa, who has six kids to care for, has the time or energy to maintain two amazing blogs and write for another, but she does: the Healthy Food Guide, Being Gluten Free in NZ, and Family Matters. I think the kids alone would do me in, but she?s some kind of suprawoman. This shot was taken on a recent trip to Hobbiton, one of the movie sets from the ?Lord of the Rings? trilogy.
Tree at Hobbiton
This next photo comes from Julie?s ?ancestral land? in Lipnica Wielka, Poland. Julie, who years ago decided to stop chasing the American dream of a house in the ?burbs and took to the road, writes a fantastic blog called ?Wish I Were Here.?? She writes: ?Where is ?Here?? Although it appears to be the places that I write about, in reality ?Here? is that calm place within that eluded me for so long. After many years of running after it, and running away from other things, I?ve finally found it.?
Fields and clouds, Poland
Naomi?s blog, Fifty Two Create, stands out from most of the others here because it?s devoted to ?sewing, knitting, and craft creations.? It has fabulous ideas for all three. This moody shot comes from a summer holiday at Clacton-on-Sea, England.
Stormy skies, Clacton
This lovely closeup of a scallop shell, taken at Findhorn beach in Scotland, comes from Greg at GSP2 Photography. Have a look at some of his other work ? really marvelous stuff.
Shell on the beach
Scribbler in Seville is the wonderful blog of freelance journalist Fiona Flores Watson, and you can also check out the writing of this ?journalist, translator, teacher, wife and mother? on her other website. This shot was taken while the family was on holiday in the Algarve of Portugal, where the kids couldn?t get enough of this pod seat in the garden of their hotel. Very cute.
Kids in the pod
So, now it?s time to vote and make your voice heard! After this first round of voting, we?ll take the Top 5 entries and hold another round to determine the Family Travel Photo Winner! If you need one more look at all of the entries, here?s an easy gallery view. You?ll find the poll below. Get voting!
When Android first appeared I had an inkling that it would be a hit. I didn't enjoy the early incarnations of the software - the G1 was like a Sidekick on steroids - but generally I expected Android devices to blanket the world for one simple reason: it was free and carriers no longer had to worry about Java stacks and wonky, homebrew OSes. Instead they could sell phones that worked, approximately, like every other Android phone in the world. It was Google's gift to an industry that was facing competition from all angles.
Enzyme replacement therapy shows promising results in X-linked myotubular myopathy
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
A collaborative research team including a Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) pediatric neuropathologist successfully mitigated some of the effects of a muscular disease by using a new targeted enzyme replacement therapy strategy from 4s3 Bioscience.
X-linked myotubular myopathy (XLMTM) is a severe muscle disease caused by an absence of a protein called myotubularin. There is currently no treatment for this disorder, and most patients die in infancy or childhood. The overall incidence of myotubular myopathy is 1 in 50,000 live male births.
Michael W. Lawlor, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology at MCW, researcher at the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin Research Institute, and director of the pediatric pathology neuromuscular laboratory in MCW's division of pediatric pathology, coordinated a study at Boston Children's Hospital and MCW that used targeted enzyme replacement therapy to deliver myotubularin to muscles of mice with XLMTM. After two weeks of treatment, the mice showed marked improvement in muscle function and pathology.
"These promising findings suggest that even low levels of myotubularin protein replacement can not only improve weakness in patients, but also at least partially reverse the structural abnormalities seen in XLMTM," said Dr. Lawlor. "The next step is to determine appropriate dosage, and toxicity, before we venture into human trials," he continued.
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The findings are published in the January edition of Human and Molecular Genetics http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/01/09/hmg.ddt003.full.pdf+html.
Medical College of Wisconsin: http://www.mcw.edu
Thanks to Medical College of Wisconsin for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
Ohio State implants first brain pacemaker to treat Alzheimer'sPublic release date: 23-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Eileen Scahill
Eileen.Scahill@osumc.edu
614-293-3737
Ohio State Wexner Medical Center
COLUMBUS, Ohio During a five-hour surgery last October at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Kathy Sanford became the first Alzheimer's patient in the United States to have a pacemaker implanted in her brain.
She is the first of up to 10 patients who will be enrolled in an FDA-approved study at Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center to determine if using a brain pacemaker can improve cognitive and behavioral functioning in patients with Alzheimer's disease.
The study employs the use of deep brain stimulation (DBS), the same technology used to successfully treat about 100,000 patients worldwide with movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease. In the study, researchers hope to determine whether DBS surgery can improve function governed by the frontal lobe and neural networks involved in cognition and behavior by stimulating certain areas of the brain with a pacemaker.
Dr. Douglas Scharre, neurologist and director of the division of cognitive neurology, and Dr. Ali Rezai, neurosurgeon and director of the neuroscience program, both at Wexner Medical Center, are conducting the study.
"If the early findings that we're seeing continue to be robust and progressive, then I think that will be very promising and encouraging for us," says Rezai, who also directs the Center for Neuromodulation at Ohio State. "But so far we are cautiously optimistic."
The deep brain stimulation implant is similar to a cardiac pacemaker device with the exception that the pacemaker wires are implanted in the brain rather than the heart.
"Basically, the pacemakers send tiny signals into the brain that regulate the abnormal activity of the brain and normalize it more," says Rezai. "Right now, from what we're seeing in our first patient, I think the results are encouraging, but this is research. We need to do more research and understand what's going on."
The study, which will enroll people with mild or early-stage Alzheimer's disease, will help determine if DBS has the potential to improve cognitive, behavioral and functional deficits.
Sanford continues to be evaluated to determine the effectiveness of the technology, says Rezai. She says she volunteered for the study to help others avoid the angst she has suffered as Alzheimer's slowly disrupted her life.
"I'm just trying to make the world a better place," says Sanford. "That's all I'm doing."
Her father, Joe Jester, says he is proud that his daughter is participating in the study, and is pleased to see her showing improvements.
"This study seemed to just give us hope," said Jester. "I guess we were at the place where you just don't do anything and watch the condition deteriorate over the years, or try to do something that would give us hope and might stop the progression of this disease."
Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of degenerative dementia, afflicting about 5.5 million Americans and costing more than $100 billion per year, ranking it the third costliest disease in terms of health care expenditures in the United States.
Alzheimer's disease which has no cure and is not easily managed becomes progressively disabling with loss of memory, cognition, worsening behavioral function, in addition to a gradual loss of independent functioning, says Scharre.
The Ohio State neurology team is nationally renowned for expertise in dementia and Alzheimer's care and research. In addition, the neuromodulation team at Ohio State are pioneers in the use of DBS to treat Parkinson's disease, as well as exploring the use of DBS for other neurological and neurobehavioral conditions. Researchers at the Neuromodulation Center are completing a study of DBS in patients with traumatic brain injuries, and have initiated a study of DBS for treating obesity.
The Alzheimer's study is scheduled to be completed in 2015.
###
BROADCAST QUALITY B-ROLL, SOUND BITES, WEB ELEMENTS & STILL PHOTOS - Including HD video available with or without names/titles is available free/unrestricted: http://bit.ly/114UlJB
Media Contact: Shannon McCormick, office: 614-932-9950 or cell: 614-477-2719 or shannon@mediasourcetv.com
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Ohio State implants first brain pacemaker to treat Alzheimer'sPublic release date: 23-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Eileen Scahill
Eileen.Scahill@osumc.edu
614-293-3737
Ohio State Wexner Medical Center
COLUMBUS, Ohio During a five-hour surgery last October at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Kathy Sanford became the first Alzheimer's patient in the United States to have a pacemaker implanted in her brain.
She is the first of up to 10 patients who will be enrolled in an FDA-approved study at Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center to determine if using a brain pacemaker can improve cognitive and behavioral functioning in patients with Alzheimer's disease.
The study employs the use of deep brain stimulation (DBS), the same technology used to successfully treat about 100,000 patients worldwide with movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease. In the study, researchers hope to determine whether DBS surgery can improve function governed by the frontal lobe and neural networks involved in cognition and behavior by stimulating certain areas of the brain with a pacemaker.
Dr. Douglas Scharre, neurologist and director of the division of cognitive neurology, and Dr. Ali Rezai, neurosurgeon and director of the neuroscience program, both at Wexner Medical Center, are conducting the study.
"If the early findings that we're seeing continue to be robust and progressive, then I think that will be very promising and encouraging for us," says Rezai, who also directs the Center for Neuromodulation at Ohio State. "But so far we are cautiously optimistic."
The deep brain stimulation implant is similar to a cardiac pacemaker device with the exception that the pacemaker wires are implanted in the brain rather than the heart.
"Basically, the pacemakers send tiny signals into the brain that regulate the abnormal activity of the brain and normalize it more," says Rezai. "Right now, from what we're seeing in our first patient, I think the results are encouraging, but this is research. We need to do more research and understand what's going on."
The study, which will enroll people with mild or early-stage Alzheimer's disease, will help determine if DBS has the potential to improve cognitive, behavioral and functional deficits.
Sanford continues to be evaluated to determine the effectiveness of the technology, says Rezai. She says she volunteered for the study to help others avoid the angst she has suffered as Alzheimer's slowly disrupted her life.
"I'm just trying to make the world a better place," says Sanford. "That's all I'm doing."
Her father, Joe Jester, says he is proud that his daughter is participating in the study, and is pleased to see her showing improvements.
"This study seemed to just give us hope," said Jester. "I guess we were at the place where you just don't do anything and watch the condition deteriorate over the years, or try to do something that would give us hope and might stop the progression of this disease."
Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of degenerative dementia, afflicting about 5.5 million Americans and costing more than $100 billion per year, ranking it the third costliest disease in terms of health care expenditures in the United States.
Alzheimer's disease which has no cure and is not easily managed becomes progressively disabling with loss of memory, cognition, worsening behavioral function, in addition to a gradual loss of independent functioning, says Scharre.
The Ohio State neurology team is nationally renowned for expertise in dementia and Alzheimer's care and research. In addition, the neuromodulation team at Ohio State are pioneers in the use of DBS to treat Parkinson's disease, as well as exploring the use of DBS for other neurological and neurobehavioral conditions. Researchers at the Neuromodulation Center are completing a study of DBS in patients with traumatic brain injuries, and have initiated a study of DBS for treating obesity.
The Alzheimer's study is scheduled to be completed in 2015.
###
BROADCAST QUALITY B-ROLL, SOUND BITES, WEB ELEMENTS & STILL PHOTOS - Including HD video available with or without names/titles is available free/unrestricted: http://bit.ly/114UlJB
Media Contact: Shannon McCormick, office: 614-932-9950 or cell: 614-477-2719 or shannon@mediasourcetv.com
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Messenger bags are my favorite style of gear bags. I carry one every day and am constantly on the look out for new brands and new ideas to make this style of bag even better than it already is. Enter the HALO ZERO,?a Kickstarter project by the?HALO Belt Company?in?collaboration?with Rickshaw Bags. “We wanted to design [...]
The ability to "Star" messages in Gmail is an awesome way to remind you to follow up on them, but you still have to remember to actually look at your list. Technology blog Digital Inspiration created a simple script that sends you a daily newsletter with 10 random messages from your starred folder. 
When Android first appeared I had an inkling that it would be a hit. I didn't enjoy the early incarnations of the software - the G1 was like a Sidekick on steroids - but generally I expected Android devices to blanket the world for one simple reason: it was free and carriers no longer had to worry about Java stacks and wonky, homebrew OSes. Instead they could sell phones that worked, approximately, like every other Android phone in the world. It was Google's gift to an industry that was facing competition from all angles.![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sWpACjx66CSnnfrj-JeafpeBlU6WYRXmzDLm58byrH30k0FFxcFbIXt1glwnQUPR4XNof7bGM0XxZ_nU2TidBf6JEEwGakhydX2zjvn6o=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 23-Jan-2013
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