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Cyclone Nargis and coastal flooding, as mapped on Google Earth.
Slowly, the enormous scope of the disaster is emerging. The data for Google Earth’s layer on the cyclone came via Unosat (the United Nations Institute for Training and Research Operational Satellite Applications Program), which has posted a set of maps related to the flooding.
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Proclaimed the Solar Capital of the World, Taos, New Mexico has been committed to going green for a long time, and this summer thousands of people from around the world will gather their umbrellas, sunscreen, family and friends, and make a musical pilgrimage to this high desert town for the 10th Annual Taos Solar Music Festival. Renowned for its brave and eclectic montage of musical acts, a solar and wind powered stage and educational Solar Village, the 2008 festival is scheduled for June 27-29th. http://www.solarmusicfest.com. They’re walking the walk and living green. The festival’s Solar Stage will be powered by photovoltaic panels while the main stage uses the wind energy from Kit Carson Electric |
A McKinsey report on global medical tourism says most medical tourists are leaving home to seek more advanced and higher-quality care — often the wealthy in the developing world traveling to the U.S. and other developed countries. Just ask the Mayo Clinic or the Cleveland Clinic, which have catered to well-heeled international patients for decades. In total, somewhere between 60,000 and 85,000 people a year travel to a foreign country to receive care, the WSJ reports. Only 13% of those are people looking for cheaper prices. Another 15%, largely from Canada and the U.K., do it to circumvent the long waiting times. The big question is whether insurers, employers and the government will begin encouraging the practice.
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The world's longest sea-crossing bridge opened in China just a few days ago, an engineering wonder designed to cut in half the travel time between Shanghai and the key port of Ningbo — from four hours to about two. But as with many/most traffic projects, planners just couldn't factor in the variables of one confounding element: humans. Since the Hangzhou Bay Bridge opened Friday, traffic has doubled. "I just wanted to drive a bit slowly and enjoy the sea breeze. Is that wrong?" one driver complained, according to Zhejiang Online  clipped from www.roadtraffic-technology.comThe 36km-long Hangzhou Bay Bridge is a six-lane highway bridge and the longest ocean-crossing bridge in the world. The service island at the middle of the Hangzhou Bay Bridge serves as a sightseeing location for drivers and can also support rescue services. "Designed for 100 years of service life, the bridge has speed limits of 100km/h for the main spans and 120km/h for land approaches."
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Convicted "D.C. Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey railed against what she called a "modern-day lynching" in notes to her mother and sister before hanging herself at her mother's Florida home, police disclosed Monday.
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The most common form of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and a relatively rare hereditary form of dementia, frontotemporal dementia with parkinsonism-17, share a common pathology: Both are the result of an overaccumulation of tau proteins, which form tangled lesions in the brain’s neurons and eventually lead to the collapse of the brain cells responsible for memory although mutations in the gene encoding tau have not been found in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, they have been identified in individual with frontotemporal dementia, and are often used as models for studying Alzheimer’s disease A new study finds that the Pin1 enzyme, previously shown to be of benefit in “detangling” tau in Alzheimer’s disease, actually has the contradictory effect in cases in which the tau has certain mutations while increasing Pin1 in neurons effectively suppresses the disease development in cases of Alzheimer’s, it actually accelerates disease progression in the case of frontotemporal dementia
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