Thursday, August 12, 2010

According to a new study, US girls are reaching puberty earlier than ever, a trend that raises some health concerns. The study, which was conducted in New York’s East Harlem, the Cincinnati metropolitan area, and the San Francisco Bay area, showed that by age eight, 27% of girls had begun puberty and showed breast development. By age seven, 15% of girls were developing breasts.

There were differences among races. By age 7, 10.4% of white girls had reached puberty, up from 5% in a 1997 study. In contrast, 23.4% of African-Americans and 14.9% of Hispanics had reached puberty. Also, at age 8, 18.3% of whites, 42.9% of blacks and 30.9% of Hispanics had reached puberty.

Girls who reach puberty earlier have a higher chance of engaging in early sexual activity. The study examined 1,239 girls aged between six and eight.

Though the study did not address why US girls were reaching breast development earlier, it found that heavier girls reached puberty earlier. Marcia Herman-Giddens of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill has said that the earlier puberty could be related to the rising obesity rate among US citizens. Currently, a third of US children are overweight or obese. Scientists and researchers are also worried about chemicals like bisphenol A (BPA) and atrazine that could disrupt growth hormones. The chemical industry says that these chemicals are safe and are harmless to humans.

Herman-Giddens also said that it can be confusing to hit puberty at a young age. Girls reaching puberty at a younger age are more likely to attempt suicide. Also, earlier puberty can cause low self-esteem and depression and at adulthood, girls who reached puberty earlier are more likely to have breast cancer and endometrial cancer.

A compilation of brief news reports for Tuesday, April 17, 2007.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Children from single-parent homes are much more likely to be sexually abused – a study carried out at University of Pennsylvania‘s School of Medicine suggests.

Previous studies have found that children being raised in single-parent homes are at greater health and other kinds of risks. The new study shows that these risks include higher risk of childhood sexual abuse. This especially concerns low-income one-parent households.

Dr. William C. Holmes, MD, MSCE, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania says that the problem involves psychological and emotional aspects.

?hildren from one-parent homes do need more communication with their moms or dads. However, the parents are often absent from the home, being busy working to provide their children with basic necessities. The children have to find someone who would be a parent-substitute with whom to communicate and to share experiences. Molesters take advantage of this situation and become friends to these emotionally-needy children.

Holmes says that low-income single-parent households are at greater risk due to the type of childcare facilities available to children from such families. Unfortunately, these are not facilities with thorough oversight of who is a caregiver of a child.

According to Holmes, studies like this one suggest that there should be some interventions to help single parents and their children, for instance through funding of better childcare facilities.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Officials say the death toll in the recent earthquake in China has reached almost 15,000. The news comes as 2,000 of the nation’s troops were dispatched to the Zipingku Dam to repair “extremely dangerous” cracks in the structure, which is upriver from Dujiangyan City, already severely hit by the disaster.

It is feared the toll will rise much further as 60,000 people are missing after the 7.9 magnitude quake in Sichuan left entire towns “razed to the ground” with no buildings standing, according to officials in the area. At one destroyed school 178 children were found dead after the building collapsed while they slept inside it. A second school at Wudu, twenty miles from the epicentre behind the White Cloud Mountain, has 130 dead children and 150 more still buried and feared dead.

Zipingku Dam has had some water drained to ease the pressure on it. According to the Ministry of Water Resources’ website “If Zipingpu develops a serious safety problem, it could bring disaster to Dujiangyan city downstream.” Numerous other dams are also affected, including several others near Dujiangyan. In addition, experts from France’s Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety say it cannot yet be ruled out that a number of nuclear power facilities in the area have been affected.

50,000 troops have been brought to the area to provide assistance. However, emergency response is being made difficult by continuing poor weather and landslides that have cut off Wenchuan county. In Mianyang alone, one of the worst-hit cities, some 19,000 people are thought to be buried under rubble and the first rescuers to reach the epicenter state tens of thousands may be dead there as well. The Wenchuan town of Yingxiu has only 2,300 confirmed survivors from a 12,000-strong population. Some aid in the form of food, water and medicine has arrived by helicopter, but rotorcraft operations are very dangerous due to ongoing poor weather. Trucks loaded with noodles and biscuits were raided by crowds before the aid could be properly handed out. The People’s Liberation Army intends to send in paratroopers.

“They had better set up a distribution system, or we will be stealing what we can,” one survivor promised.

Meanwhile, accusations of blame over the scale of the effects have been leveled at construction companies and local authorities. The allegations say that the firms used substandard techniques and materials when building many projects, and corrupt local authorities deliberately ignored the problem. Some people have nicknamed the resulting structures “tofu buildings”, an allusion to the fact that they are alleged to be ‘as soft as tofu‘. “It’s nothing but corruption – they must have used sub-standard cement and steel,” said rescuer Dr Tian, who withheld his second name from journalists. It is also alleged that both local residents and international scientific organisations were ignored when they warned of a large impending earthquake.

As a mark of respect, the Olympic torch relay will be scaled back in response to the earthquake.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

A security camera at the First Judicial District courthouse in Santa Fe, New Mexico has captured an unidentified star shaped object that appears to spin, on camera. The object was recorded on Friday and some say it is a ghost, a reflection, or a piece of cottonwood fluff.

Alfred Arana, a Sheriff Deputy for Santa Fe County first discovered the object after he began to watch the surveillance recordings from the day before. He then requested Sgt. Vanessa Pacheco watch the recording to see what she thought. The object appeared at the time stamp of just before 7:30 a.m. (pacific time) on Friday morning.

“Generally, most people who’ve seen (the video) believe it is some type of spirit or ghost. It’s something unexplainable, (but) I don’t believe in ghosts so I don’t think that’s what it is,” said Sgt. Pacheco.

Public defender Earl Rhoads who works at the courthouse says that the object is totally explainable and that it is likely a piece of fluff from the cottonwood trees that stand close to the camera.

“I’m not willing to say it’s proof of paranormal activity. I think it’s totally explainable. I’m open to other possibilities, but my best guess at this point is that it’s a small floating object near the camera lens, probably a fluff of cotton from the cottonwoods nearby or an insect or something like that,” said Rhoads.

In the video, the object moves from the back door of the courthouse (in the upper right corner of the screen). It then floats, while rotating, shining and appearing in the shape of a star, toward the bottom right corner of the screen, past a police car, and then out of view.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Boston’s Central Artery and Third Harbor Tunnel Project (CA/T), unofficially known as the Big Dig, plagued by cost overruns and reports of shoddy workmanship, has been hit with yet another scandal as six employees of its primary concrete supplier have been indicted for falsifying records regarding allegedly inferior concrete supplied to the massive highway construction project.

Federal prosecutors alleged in a 135 count indictment that of the 135,000 truckloads of concrete, a “web” of falsified documents were used to cover up a conspiracy where at least 5,000 truckloads — 1.2 percent of the concrete used — did not meet specifications. The company, Aggregate Industries NE Inc. was paid US$105 million for the concrete.

Aggregate said in a statement Thursday that it would cooperate with authorities.

“As a result of extensive testing by industry experts, Aggregate Industries is satisfied that all of the concrete it has supplied on the Big Dig and throughout the commonwealth is structurally sound,” the statement said.

Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly said “We have no evidence whatsoever that the structural integrity and safety of the tunnel has been compromised.”

Commonwealth of Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said in a prepared statement, “No one in Massachusetts should be surprised to learn that a project so badly mismanaged, over budget, and grossly delayed is now also facing allegations of criminal misbehavior.” Romney and Lt. Governor Kerry Healey have also announced that they have decided to return campaign contributions from workers of Aggregate Industries.

Indicted were: former general manager Robert Prosperi, 63, of Lynnfield, Massachusetts; Marc Blais, 36, of Lynn, Massachusetts, a dispatch manager; John Farrar, 42, of Canterbury, Connecticut, a dispatch manager; Gerard McNally, 53, of Rockland, Massachusetts, a quality control manager; Gregory Stevenson, 53, of Furlong, Pennsylvania, district operations manager; and Keith Thomas, 50, of Billerica, Massachusetts, a dispatch manager. Stevenson and Farrar are no longer with the company. Aggregate says it has suspended the others.

According to the indictments,

• the six Aggregate employees recycled concrete that had been rejected because it had not been used within 90 minutes of being mixed
• in some cases double-billing for the loads
• the workers gave falsified documentation to project inspectors to show the concrete was fresh
• the faulty concrete was used in walls and roof slabs in the Interstate 93 tunnel, parts of the Interstate 90 tunnel and the sea walls of the Fort Point Channel, among other places.

At the arrest hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Wyshack said, “The taxpayers of this community and this country will be paying for years to come.”

Lawyers for the employees say the men believed their conduct was legal, that the concrete supplied by Aggregate Industries met all the strength requirements of the project, and that Big Dig managers sometimes waived the 90-minute rule when trucks of concrete were lined up to meet heavy demand. Stephen Delinsky, an attorney for one of the defendants, said they delivered quality concrete, but prosecutors probing the troubled project are looking to place blame. “It’s always easy to blame the lowest level, which is the concrete manufacturers. Each defendant believed that they acted in good faith. They believed at all times their conduct was legal and believed the concrete delivered to the Big Dig was appropriate.”

A spokesman for project manager Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff declined comment.

On August 11, 2005, it was announced that the Massachusetts State Police searched Aggregate’s offices in June and found evidence of faked records that hid the poor quality of concrete delivered for highway project. On March 19, 2006, the International Herald Tribune reported that Massachusetts “Attorney General Tom Reilly plans to sue Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff and other companies if the two sides do not reach an agreement over 200 complaints of poor work in the construction of a highway system under the center of Boston, the Boston Globe reported Saturday. Reilly was said to be seeking $67 million from Bechtel and $41 million from other companies.”

The purpose of the project was to remove the more than 50-year-old aboveground Interstate 93 freeway running through downtown Boston by burying it, and connecting the Massachusetts Turnpike with Logan Airport by running a third tunnel below Boston Harbor. The project was completed this year after serious delays and cost overruns reached US$14.6 billion, a more than 500% increase over the original estimate of US$2.6 billion. More than ten years of detours to traffic ended when the last major section opened in January.