Aggressive parents force egg hunt cancellation

Aggressive parents force egg hunt cancellation — An annual Easter egg hunt attended by hundreds of children has been canceled because of misbehavior last year. Not by the kids, but by the grown-ups.

Too many parents determined to see their children get an egg jumped a rope marking the boundaries of the children-only hunt at Bancroft Park last year. The hunt was over in seconds, to the consternation of eggless tots and the rules-abiding parents.

Organizers say the hunt in Old Colorado City has gotten too big for the hundreds of children and parents now attending. They canceled this year.

Last April's egg hunt, sponsored by the Old Colorado City Association, experienced a few technical difficulties, said Mazie Baalman, owner of Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and sponsor of the event.

There was no place to hide the plastic eggs, which were filled with donated candy or coupons redeemable at nearby businesses. So thousands of eggs were put in plain view on the grass. A bullhorn to start the event malfunctioned, so Baalman, master of ceremonies, used a public address system that was hard to hear.

"So everybody thinks you said 'Go,' and everybody goes, and it's over in seconds," Baalman said. "If one parent gets in there, other parents say, 'If one can get in, we all can get in,' and everybody goes."

Parenting observers cite the cancellation as a prime example of so-called "helicopter parents" — those who hover over their children and are involved in every aspect of their children's lives — to ensure that they don't fail, even at an Easter egg hunt.

"They couldn't resist getting over the rope to help their kids," said Ron Alsop, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and author of "The Trophy Kids Grow Up," which examines the "millennial children" generation.

"That's the perfect metaphor for millennial children. They (parents) can't stay out of their children's lives. They don't give their children enough chances to learn from hard knocks, mistakes."

Alsop and others say the parenting phenomenon began in earnest when baby boomers who decorated their cars with "Baby on Board" signs in the 1980s began having children. It has prompted at least two New York companies to establish "take your parent to work day" for new recruits as parents remain involved even after their children become adults.

Lenny Watkins, who lives a block away from Bancroft Park, took his friend's son, then 4, to the hunt in 2009. "I just remember having a wonderful time, him with his Easter basket," Watkins said, adding he can understand why a parent would step in.

"You have all these eggs just lying around, and parents helping out. You better believe I'm going to help my kid get one of those eggs. I promised my kid an Easter egg hunt, and I'd want to give him an even edge."

Jennifer Rexford, who used to live near the park, said she participated in public Easter egg hunts with her boys, ages 3, 8 and 14. She doesn't anymore, because of "pushy parents" that she said she has dealt with at the hunts.

"It just seems to be the mindset. People just want the best for their kids," Rexford said.

Alsop said that dynamic is at play with parents who hover over their children, even into adulthood.

"I don't see any sign of it abating," he said. "It seems everything is more and more and more competitive, fast paced, and I think parents are going to see they need to do more to help their kids get an edge." ( Associated Press )

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Cage dogs of Hong Kong: The tragedy of tens of thousands living in 6ft by 2ft rabbit hutches - in a city with more Louis Vuitton shops than Paris

Cage dogs of Hong Kong: The tragedy of tens of thousands living in 6ft by 2ft rabbit hutches - in a city with more Louis Vuitton shops than Paris - Hong Kong, one of the world's richest cities, is abuzz with a luxury property boom that has seen homes exchanged for record sums.

But the wealth of the city has a darker side, with tens of thousands priced out of housing altogether and forced to live in the most degrading conditions.

These pictures by British photographer Brian Cassey capture the misery of people - some estimates put the figure as high as 100,000 - who are forced to live in cages measuring just 6ft by 2 1/2ft.

Yan Chi Leung is mentally ill and lives in the 6ft by 2.5ft wire cage at the bottom of this stack of three

Kong Sui Kao, 64, sits in his home in a room with 19 other cages

The city is one of the planet's most densely packed metropolitan areas, with nearly 16,500 people living in every square mile of the territory.

Unscrupulous landlords are charging around US$200 a month for each cage, which are packed 20 to a room, and up to three levels high.

The lower cages are more expensive because you can almost stand inside them, but the conditions are no less squalid.

All this in a city with more Louis Vuitton shops than Paris.

Tai Lun Po, 79, has lived in the cage he is sitting in for an extraordinary 30 years

Eight-year-old Lee Ka Ying lives in a 6ft square 'cubicle cage home' with her mother

Yan Chi Keung eats takeaway outside his wire cage home - there are no cooking facilities

Tai Lun Po walks to the bathroom which he shares with the other residents

Occupants must share toilets and washing facilities, which are rudimentary. Many of the apartments have no kitchens, forcing their impoverished residents to spend there meagre incomes on takeaway food.

The cage homes have been a running scandal in Hong Kong's housing market for decades, yet rather than disappear, they are on the rise.

As the world economic crisis has lashed the city a former British territory whose economy is focused on financial services, more have been forced to turn to them for a place to stay.

The alternative is life on the streets.

Mr Yan smokes a cigarette amid his neighbours in his cage flat

Tai Lun Po walks the corridors of his Mongkok Hong Kong cage home

Tang Man Wai, 60, a retired restaurant worker, is forced to spend what little money he has on take-away food

A building in Mongkok that houses cage people, sometimes squeezed twenty to a room

One cage dweller, Cheung, who lives in Sham Shui Po, told the Asia Times Online he endures appallingly cramped and fetid conditions.

'The temperature inside the cages can be two to three degrees higher than what they are outside,' he said.

'It's really uncomfortable, and sometimes I cannot sleep until after 5 in the morning.'

Cockroaches, wall lizards, lice and rats are common. 'Sometimes I am worried if lizards or cockroaches will crawl into my ears at night,' said Cheung. ( dailymail.co.uk )

READ MORE - Cage dogs of Hong Kong: The tragedy of tens of thousands living in 6ft by 2ft rabbit hutches - in a city with more Louis Vuitton shops than Paris

With 12,000 still missing, Japan keeps searching

With 12,000 still missing, Japan keeps searching – A line of somber soldiers walked methodically through a drained swamp Monday, with each step sinking their slender poles into the muck beneath. If one hit a body, he would know.

"Bodies feel very distinctive," said Michihiro Ose, a spokesman for the Japanese army's 22nd infantry regiment.

The men were among 25,000 troops given the morbid duty of searching the rubble, the seas and the swamps of northeastern Japan for the bodies of the nearly 12,000 people still missing in last month's earthquake and tsunami.

The two-day operation was the biggest military search since the March 11 disaster. With waters receding, officials hoped the troops, backed by police, coast guard and U.S. forces, would make significant progress. By Monday evening, they had found 38 bodies, the military said.

In the town of Shichigahamamachi, about two dozen Japanese soldiers in black boots, white masks and waterproof jumpsuits traveled silently in unison across the soggy earth, made even softer by torrential rains an hour earlier. In some areas, the mud came up to their knees.

Japan Ground Self-Defense Force members search, ... - Japan Ground Self-Defense Force members search for missing people in their third major recovery operation since the March 11 earthquake in Shichigahamamachi, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, Monday, April 25, 2011.

The search focused on a long, narrow marsh drained in recent weeks by the army using special pump trucks.

Once the soldiers reached the end of the marsh, they turned around and walked back. And then back again.

"It's important not to miss anything," Ose said as he watched the soldiers nearly camouflaged by the dark gray mud. "As long as there is time left in the day, we will keep going up and down."

In another part of town, several dozen soldiers cleared mountains of rubble by hand from a waterfront neighborhood filled with gutted and teetering houses. Four people in the neighborhood were missing, said 67-year-old Sannojo Watanabe.

"That was my house right there," he said, pointing to a foundation with nothing atop it.

He surveyed the neighborhood: "There's nothing left here."

A total of 24,800 soldiers — backed by 90 helicopters and planes — were sent to comb through the rubble for buried remains, while 50 boats and 100 navy divers searched the waters up to 12 miles (20 kilometers) off the coast to find those swept out to sea.

The search is far more difficult than that for earthquake victims, who would mostly be under rubble. The tsunami could have left the victims anywhere.

"We just don't know where the bodies are," Ose said.

In all, 370 troops from the 22nd infantry regiment looked for a dozen people still missing from Shichigahamamachi. The regiment had been searching the area with a far smaller contingent, but tripled the number of troops for the two-day intense search, said Col. Akira Kunitomo, the regimental commander.

Bodies found so many weeks after the disaster are likely to be unrecognizable, black and swollen, Ose said.

"We wouldn't even know if they would be male or female," he said.

The work is personal for the unit. More than half its 900 troops hail from Miyagi prefecture, which was hit hard by the tsunami, and nearly all are from northern Japan. It lost one of its own to the tsunami — a soldier in his 30s who was on break but tried in vain to rush back to camp after the earthquake.

More than 14,300 people have been confirmed dead and nearly 11,900 remain missing. The military's first major sweep for bodies uncovered 339; its second turned up 99 more, Defense Ministry spokesman Norikazu Muratani said.

After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, bodies turned up along the Indonesian coast for months afterward. However, 37,000 of the 164,000 people who died in Indonesia simply disappeared, their bodies presumably washed out to sea.

Last week, two undersea robots provided by the nonprofit International Rescue Systems Institute conducted five-day searches in waters near three tsunami-hit towns. They found cars, homes and other wreckage, but no bodies, said Mika Murata, an official with the institute.

The Japanese government has come under criticism for its response to the disasters and a subsequent nuclear crisis.

On Monday, Goshi Hosono, an adviser to Prime Minister Naoto Kan and member of his nuclear crisis management task force, slammed the operator of the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co., for its handling of the crisis.

The plant was not properly prepared for the tsunami or for the loss of power that followed, he said. And TEPCO delayed the crucial venting of radioactive steam that built up immense pressure and may have contributed to hydrogen explosions that made the crisis even worse, he said. All those issues are being investigated, he said.

"I think TEPCO is used to its routine work as a supplier of electricity, but it was not good at handling something different," he said.

TEPCO announced a roadmap last week to bring the plant into cold shutdown within six to nine months, a crucial step for allowing the tens of thousands evacuated from a 12-mile (20-kilometer) area around the plant to return home.

Hosono said the situation at the plant remained "extremely difficult," with radioactivity high in some areas and the transfer of contaminated water proving very tough. Though work is slower than hoped for, Hosono said he saw no reason it would not be completed along the road map's timetable.

Meanwhile, the government was discussing how much of the compensation for the nuclear crisis it would bear and how much would be paid by TEPCO.

With its liability likely to stretch into the billions, TEPCO announced Monday it would slash executive compensation by 50 percent, cut managers' salaries by 25 percent and low-level employees would get a 20 percent pay cut. It also planned to freeze hiring for next year. The amount saved would total 54 billion yen ($660 million) for the year, the company said. ( Associated Press )

READ MORE - With 12,000 still missing, Japan keeps searching

Baby in iconic tsunami photo safe with parents

Baby in iconic tsunami photo safe with parents – A Japanese soldier grins as he cradles a tiny baby in a fuzzy pink blanket, plucked from the second story of a wreckage-blocked house three days after a powerful earthquake and tsunami flattened much of the country's northeastern coastline.

The moment — captured by a photographer from leading Japanese newspaper Yomiuri and published by newspapers and websites worldwide — evoked a rare glimmer of hope amid so much destruction and death from the March 11 disasters that killed an estimated 26,000 people.

Weeks later, 5-month-old Iroha Ishikawa is now healthy and safe, living at a shelter inside an elementary school with her parents in Ishinomaki, 200 miles (320 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.

"I'm happy that we were rescued, but there is a lot of sadness behind it — many families didn't make it," the infant's mother, Yuki Ishikawa, tells The Associated Press.

Ishikawa, 41, says she was home with her baby daughter on the Friday afternoon when the magnitude-9 earthquake hit, rattling her home and toppling furniture. She began packing her car to flee when her husband, Takatoshi, returned from work and said he heard strange noises — the sounds of a powerful tsunami blasting its way through their neighborhood near the shore.

Japan Self-Defense Force member reacts - FILE - In this March 14, 2011 file photo, a Japan Self-Defense Force member reacts after rescuing a four-month-old baby girl Iroha Ishikawa in Ishinomaki, northern Japan, three days after a powerful earthquake-triggered tsunami hit the country's east coast. Iroha, five-month-old, is now healthy and safe, living at a shelter inside an elementary school with her parents in Ishinomaki, 200 miles (320 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.

The mother grabbed only Iroha and a baby bag as she ran for safety. It had a thermos with some hot water, two cans of milk, three baby bottles and some diapers in it.

They fled to the second story of a neighbor's house along with the couple that lived there. A minute later the tsunami crashed through the first floor.

"We saw all kinds of things get washed by in the waters — debris, cars, and to be honest, bodies," she says. "We stayed there for two days with nothing to eat or drink, except for what the baby had."

Two days after the tsunami, the waters receded, and the two men were able to scrounge some food. The group of five was located by soldiers, who asked them to move to a crowded shelter closer to the shore. They declined, and then a powerful aftershock sent everyone scrambling for safety. The troops returned the next day.

"The doors of the house were blocked by cars and other debris, so we had to go out through a window. The soldiers helped us out through the window, and that was when the picture was taken," Yuki Ishikawa says.

Since then, the Ishikawas have been living in the elementary school, with father Takatoshi so busy fixing pipes at damaged buildings that he has had little time to clean up their own home. The mother says she can't really think very far into the future, but she hopes they can move to temporary housing or somewhere with more privacy.

As for the widely viewed photo, she says it is such a positive image that it masks some of the tragedy of the tsunami.

"I don't really have any feelings about the picture itself," Iroha's mother says. "I just want people to know the reality of what happened here." ( Associated Press )

READ MORE - Baby in iconic tsunami photo safe with parents

Chernobyl's health legacy

Chernobyl's health legacy – Every year, Volodymyr Palkin spends at least two months in a Kiev hospital. He was one of hundreds of thousands of rescue workers sent to fight the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant and says his health has been permanently ruined by his work.

Yet 25 years after the world's worst nuclear disaster on April 26, 1986, huge controversy remains over the true extent of the damage caused to health, with estimates ranging from tens of thousands of fatal cancers to far fewer.

An estimated 600,000 rescue workers, known as liquidators, from across Belarus, Russia and Ukraine were sent to Chernobyl in the years after the disaster, working in hazardous conditions to clean up the contaminated wreckage.

Palkin, now 69, was one of the first wave of emergency staff. Sitting on his hospital bed he showed pictures of his former colleagues who were among the 30 people confirmed to have died in the first weeks after the disaster.

Patient receives treatment in hospital - A patient receives treatment in a hospital in Narodychi on April 5, 2011. The Narodychi district is located near Chernobyl and is one of the regions of Ukraine that suffered most from the nuclear disaster

He was ordered to work on April 26 and was then hospitalised a few weeks later with haemorrhages in his throat and intestines. He says he was ordered by the authorities to register only half of the radiation exposure he received.

"I had excellent health before. But now I can hardly walk, I suffer problems with my thyroid and my teeth are disintegrating," said Palkin, who has spent two months each year in hospital since 1986.

He complained of the size of his pension -- $202, most of which he said goes on medicine. As a certified "liquidator" he also receives a monthly payment of 300 hryvnias ($38) for food and a 50 percent discount on household bills.

Palkin shares his hospital room with Volodymyr Zabolotny, 70, a fellow veteran of Chernobyl, who however puts his health problems down to old age rather than his work in the disaster zone.

Organisations including environmental campaigning group Greenpeace have warned there could be as many as 100,000 fatal cancers that can be directly attributed to Chernobyl, many affecting the liquidators.

But such conclusions are vehemently contested by the UN Scientific Committee on Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), whose latest report in February estimated the death toll from Chernobyl to be in the dozens and not the thousands.

Along with the two Chernobyl workers who were killed by the explosion and the 28 other staff and firemen who died from radiation shortly afterwards, it says just 19 of the radiation survivors died up to 2006, for various reasons not usually associated with radiation exposure.

The only major health effect for the wider population was 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer that were due to children drinking contaminated milk at the time, of which 15 had proved fatal by 2005. Thyroid cancer is considered to be treatable.

As for the liquidators, "to date apart from an increase in the incidence of leukaemia and cataracts among those who receives higher doses, there is no evidence of health effects that can be attributed to radiation exposure," UNSCEAR said.

Such conclusions are politically explosive in Ukraine where liquidator groups have long blamed their illnesses on Chernobyl and have bitterly criticised the post-Soviet authorities for insufficient compensation.

Some experts have said that possibly the worst health legacy of Chernobyl is a mental rather than physical one, with those affected traumatised by the memory of April 1986, forced relocation and above all the sense that they are victims of a nuclear catastrophe.

One voice which has dissented loudly from the line of the UN agencies is Belarussian nuclear expert Yury Bandazhevsky, who was jailed for several years from 2001 on corruption charges supporters say were trumped up as punishment for his criticism of Minsk's handling of the nuclear contamination.

"A proper system for estimating the consequences has yet to be developed at an international level," Bandazhevsky, who has been researching the effects of the disaster since 1987, told AFP.

"State structures have for the last 25 years done everything to cover up the information for the sake of the nuclear energy lobby which is the most powerful lobby in the world and dictates the conditions today."

But Ukrainian medical researcher David Belyi, who has co-authored several international papers on Chernobyl, backed the scepticism over the large toll from Chernobyl, even though he admitted there could still be gaps in our knowledge.

"It's very hard to estimate the effects of the radiation," he told AFP.

"Today all the attempts to connect the radiation with illnesses of the internal organs amongst the affected population -- with the exception of thyroid cancer -- have not resulted in success."

"We cannot say that gastric ulcers or heart disease are encountered more often or in a particular form among the liquidators."

He strongly denied witnessing any pressure from the government or big nuclear energy business to suppress any statistics.

Life expectancy for those affected by Chernobyl is no different from the World Health Organisation's life expectancy estimate for men and women in Ukraine of 61 and 73 years respectively, he said.

"So far we have not shown other effects. But in the future we should not be afraid of re-examining our knowledge and acknowledging any mistakes," he said. ( Agence France Presse)

READ MORE - Chernobyl's health legacy

Bath-time fun

Bath-time fun - There’s no better time for bonding between parent and child than when giving the youngster a relaxing bath - IF you've got a child who doesn’t like having a bath, there goes one of the best ways you can get some relaxation for both of you.

Baths (and showers) are not only important for keeping us clean, it is also an important part of the day, normally as part of the wind-down to bed time.

There is nothing nicer than taking a tired child, seeing him relax in a warm bath, then tucking him up into bed, all relaxed and smelling clean.

If your baby or child doesn’t like having a bath, there are a few easy things you can do to help resolve that.

First, take a look at your own attitude to baths and showers. Do you feel irritable and tense and want them to be over and done with quickly?

This attitude can rub off on your child, and make them less likely to enjoy it.

Being a bath-time role model helps. In fact, often children enjoy hopping into the bath with you, and it can help you enjoy some healthy skin to skin contact.

If you don’t want to hop in, at least move your body so you can be at eye level with them while they are in the bath.

Singing is a good thing to do to help distract them. You can sing songs about water (and rubber duckies) or make up silly songs about being in the bath.

Singing helps you reduce your own stress around the situation too, so that both of you can relax. It’s not about sounding beautiful, so don’t worry if you are not a natural singer.

It’s a great place to learn too. Give children plenty of toys to play with. They don’t need to be expensive, in fact children often like playing with bottles and plastic containers more than anything pretty.

It doesn’t have to be "real life" to children. As long as they can scoop, pour and move water around, they are generally happy.

You could try to make model boats (out of foil) with children that they are only allowed to use if they have a bath. Turn the bath itself into a play area, instead of a place that is boring.

Make sure you have everything you need around you before you begin your child’s bath. This includes bath toys, a facecloth and a towel.

It can be easy to become distracted while your children are in the bath, but for their safety, you need to focus on them completely. Do not take your phone into the bathroom at all, and consider putting it on silent so it doesn’t tempt you if it rings.

When changing behaviours, it’s a good idea to keep the experience very short at first. It’s better for your child to have a happy bath for two minutes, than a happy bath that turns into a chaotic mess because you left them in too long.

Make sure the water is warm enough to be relaxing, and use a nice, soap free bath wash. Focus on being as relaxed as possible yourself as you talk to your child.

If you have a child over the age of three who hates baths and showers, you can work out a contract with them to get the bath completed.

Work out the expectations together (perhaps to stay in the bath for at least three minutes, must wash whole body, etc) and give them a sticker once it is achieved – working towards a small treat (which could even be traded in for a bath-free day).

The key then is to stick to what you have agreed upon.

A consistent commitment to change the behaviour of hating the bath will see good results within three weeks. ( thesundaily.com )

READ MORE - Bath-time fun

The future of nuclear power

The future of nuclear power - At least for the near future, it seems doomed - The recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan has brought Nuclear Safety to the forefront again. In the Fukushima Daiichi plant, three explosions occurred, which have caused alarm that the reactors may release radioactive emissions into the atmosphere. Reactors have a core consisting of fuel rods which, on the nuclear reaction, emit heat. The heat is used to generate steam, which runs a turbine and generates electricity.

In a crisis, reactors automatically shut down. Control rods are inserted between fuel rods to prevent further reactions. But they're all still very hot and emanating heat. During this time, the reactor needs to be continuously cooled — and that is done by using water, draining out the steam, putting fresh water, etc. This process needs some power, which wasn't there with Japan's electricity gone due to the Tsunami reaction, and the limited capacity of backup generators. The process is now being carried out by supplying water from the ocean, even that is steaming up so fast that water levels are dangerously low.

Three explosions have since occurred at the plant, attributed to hydrogen reacting with air; hydrogen is produced when the fuel rod cladding reacts with water. That is not a bad sign if there is no breach of the primary containment vessel inside which the reactor is housed. (The secondary, or external, containment structure is designed to burst on high pressure, to protect the primary or inner shell) Reports are scarce, but we don't know of any breach in the primary containment structure.

Additionally, steam has to be continually released into the atmosphere to relieve the unit of some pressure. In the early part, this steam was "clean" — radioactive elements were within limits. Now, with the damage, exposure of fuel rods to air and explosions, even steam release is turning out to be dangerious. Helicopters and measurements outside the main zone have detected higher-than-safe levels of radiation. Japanese authorities have requested people living 20 to 30 kilometers away from the plant to stay indoors, close windows and use no air conditioning.

The danger now is of a complete meltdown and a breach of the containment vessels. The Japanese government has admitted this is a possibility and evacuations around the plants are on.

This is the worst nuclear disaster after Chernobyl in Russia (1986), and the Three Mile Island partial meltdown in the US (1979). The US has seen no new plant come online after the Three Mile Island incident. Nuclear power is very big in Japan — nearly 1/4th of their energy is nuclear, so it's not going to be easy to replace; yet, there have to be solutions.
So was this a disaster a failure of nuclear power? Most other reactors in Japan seem to be coping well — even the Indian plant in Kalpakkam survived the tsunami in 2004 through an automatic shutdown and a restart days later.

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) has released a presentation with some interesting details:

• The plant shut down as expected, on recognizing the quake. Diesel generators came on to run the cooling system.
• The tsunami carried away the DG fuel oil tanks.
• The valve control equipment and switchgear was damaged by the tsunami.
• Now there was no power, no back up (diesel fuel tanks were gone) and no control system to feed emergency water or coolant.
• That built up pressure inside the reactor — which should usually be let out. But, to avoid releasing the radioactive vapours for as long as possible, the pressure built up to twice what the structure was designed for.

There are lessons to be learnt in here — especially in emergency backup situations. In a place wrecked by earthquakes and tsunamis, one might want to reconsider building a reactor at sea level, next to the shore; or at least, to keep the water impact to a minimum. And the three reactors produce about 2000 MW of power, and are a small percentage of the overall population (Japan has 54 operational reactors).

But it is not a question of percentages — even one big blow-up can have serious consequences for a large number of people. If there is a meltdown and breach, we can't even imagine how many lives will be affected. Yet, it may be worthwhile to analyze what happened before writing off nuclear power altogether. India has already started a review of the safety mechanism of its own plants.

In India, there were hopes of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) going for an IPO and perhaps, getting more transparent in the process. For the near term, it looks like that is out of the question. The Indo-US nuclear deal would have allowed India to get access to reactor technology, but more importantly, to Uranium. There may not be much progress there, especially if the Japanese problem gets worse.

India, has been conducting a lot of useful nuclear research, especially with the use of thorium in reactors. We have the world's second largest thorium reserves, and thorium can be used to build "breeder" reactors (which produce more fuel than they consume) and lead to self-sufficient power generation. (We have to import uranium for current reactors) Will this event lead to the end of such research?

Even with the Japanese nose for quality and process, a disaster of this magnitude has struck them, and there is little reason to believe India will have fared much better. In a disaster, we react ridiculously — the military team to fight the 26/11 terrorists were stuck for hours in a plane! In that context, any effort to increase our nuclear footprint must be accompanied by trust-building that we have measures to control the radiation fallout and a documented and planned response process. It's not the nuclear plants themselves; it's also towns nearby, supply of iodine (to counter radioactive iodine in the atmosphere), local knowledge etc.

Where there was seawater poured into the reactor cores (1,2 and 3 out of the six) are now too impure to work with — the reactors will have to be decommissioned. The shortfall of 2000MW is not much, honestly. With only a few more coming up, the impact to the future within Japan is not huge, unless this event gets worse and due to public pressure, they have to consider shutting down all other plants as well. But the rest of the world, some of which was banking on the highly efficient nuclear system for power generation, might have to rethink, even if technically, current mistakes can be fixed. The power industry will start to look more closely at future at alternatives — so solar, hydro power, wind and natural gas industries should see some added interest.

The future of nuclear power seems to ride on what happens now in Japan. If there is success is curtailing further damage, all of this will be forgotten in a year. If things get worse, and it turns out the plants have had the highest safety procedures, forget about nuclear technology for the next decade. (But that's a small side-effect — the biggest concern is for the millions of people living nearby.) I expect the debate to get stronger. ( yahoo.com )

READ MORE - The future of nuclear power

Sleep Disorders and Springing Forward

Sleep Disorders and Springing Forward - Fighting with your circadian rhythm can cause almost everyone, even those who normally have an easy time falling asleep, to experience exhaustion or sleeplessness. Yet, we do it twice a year in most of the United States.

For some people, the biggest challenge of adjusting to daylight savings time is remembering to change all the clocks and getting up early enough on Sunday to make it to church or other appointments on time. But for others, the semi-annual switch is nightmarish.

The problem is that not everyone's circadian rhythm, the natural sleep cycle that the body tries to adjust to, corresponds to a 24-hour day. Worse yet, some seem to have a varied length, or be at polar opposites from what is expected.

My husband is one of those people. If he was without other commitments, his body would most happily adjust to a sleep schedule that began about 4 a.m. and lasted until 11 a.m. He can, with great personal effort, force his body to adjust to a more day-oriented schedule, but it usually results in poor sleeping, less than four hours a night, and eventually, exhaustion.

Every year, this rhythm is further hampered by the return of daylight savings time. This year, daylight savings time arrives April 13 for most people in the United States.

The spring forward, losing an hour of the time change, almost always shifts his sleep schedule forward as well. His body is reticent to change to the different number on the clock and still wants to sleep for that same immutable period of time.

To combat it this year, he is employing the suggestions of the National Sleep Foundation to change our clocks at midday Saturday, April 12, to try to trick himself into feeling sleepy earlier. But many of the suggestions don't seem likely to work. For example, the NSF says to go to bed at your regular time (as determined by the clock) on Sunday, avoid naps the day of the change, and get a full night's rest between Saturday and Sunday. Of course, it also says to get up at your usual time on Sunday.

The problem is that two of these things are contradictory.

He has insomnia anyway and trying to force his body to sleep when it isn't ready results in tossing and turning, but no rest. Then, if he gets up at the conventional time on Sunday, he will not have gotten a full night's rest.

While other insomniacs may have different troubles than he does, it is important to prepare for the coming time change and attempt small adjustments prior to the spring forward. By consulting your medical provider prior to the event, you may have better luck staying away on Sunday, April 13.

And, in the end, the National Highway Transportation Safety Board says that the time change is good for us all. Research shows that there is at least a one percent drop in traffic accidents after the shift to daylight savings time. ( news.yahoo.com )

READ MORE - Sleep Disorders and Springing Forward

Experiences, Pain and Your Brain

Experiences, Pain and Your Brain - The issue of the experience of pain very confusing. There is a lot of subjective control over pain. Researchers are aware by now that what rates as a 10 (excruciating) on the pain scale for one person may rate as only a 2 or 3 (tolerable) for another.

It is also known that even when surgical patients are placed under general anesthesia to block pain entirely, under hypnosis these same patients recall that they experienced excruciating pain. So what part of the brain was conscious and what part unconscious from the anesthesia?

All sensation is open to tremendous deviation from person to person, not just pain. To someone who has suffered sexual abuse, a gentle touch can set off alarm and panic. Sex itself can be pleasurable, painful, or neutral to the same person at different times.

So there is no simple physical explanation, in terms of signals traveling along the nervous system, that will ever comprehend the true nature of even something as basic as pain.

Some suggest that the brain is like hardware that processes software from another source. That source could be mind, soul, the subtle body, or something else. Whatever name it goes by, the software is in control, using the brain for its own purposes. Does this take us a step further in understanding pain?

In one sense it does. Pain isn't a thing, it's an experience. Like all experiences it has two sides, objective and subjective. The objective side (hardware) is shared by most people without variation - that is, two brains process signals more or less alike. The subjective side (software) is uniquely programmed for each individual. It would appear that there is no need for software to be shared at all. A sado-masochist is free to convert torment into pleasure, a drug addict is free to convert pleasure into torment.

So far, the hardware-software analogy works, but there is a sudden breakdown with the emergence of a mystifying fact: Experience changes the brain. The notion that we all share the same hardware is simply inadequate, for one sees extremely altered brain activity after emotional traumas; different activity between criminals and ordinary people; between people who are more emotional than rational and vice versa. In addition, the billions of dendrites, or nerve branches, connecting each brain cell are totally unique from one person to the next. What makes them take on their unique pattern is experience (and probably genes, also).

So we cannot separate a conscious mind from an unconscious brain. And we cannot give primacy to the physical brain over the non-physical mind. Just as the observer and the observed are intimately related in quantum physics, using your brain makes you both its observer and the thing observed, your mind uses the brain to know itself. A moment of insight, for example, requires the brain to function properly, since insights consist of thoughts, but left to itself, no brain would have any insight - it would just do what it does, which is electro-chemical processing.

Neurology concerns itself with physical activity. If a person is depressed, it can be shown that too much serotonin is reabsorbed in the synaptic gap, and therefore by inhibiting this "reuptake," the brain can be rebalanced, with the result that the person reports no longer feeling depressed.

But it depressed patients can be cued by couch therapy, that is, by talking to them. Experience changes serotonin levels. If you are depressed because you think your girlfriend no longer loves you, hearing her say, "I love you," with emotional conviction can cure your depression in an instant.

So, if the mind isn't using the brain, and the brain isn't using itself (a statement most neurologists would disagree with) who is using the brain? The best answer, I think, is "the self." The self is in the brain, outside it, and in between.

It is a person but also a process, a history but also in the present (and projecting the future). The self is the same as the experiencer, and once we understand it better, we will know a great deal more about metaphysics and its living connection to the physical world.

In the end, no one is using the brain. The self is interacting with itself, creating experience and then entering into experience to see what it feels like. ( lifestyle.yahoo.com )

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