Man-Made Earthquake - Top 5 Ways

"In the past, people never thought that human activity could have such a big impact, but it can," said Christian Klose, a geohazards researcher at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

It turns out, actually, that the human production of earthquakes is hardly supervillain-worthy. It’s downright commonplace: Klose estimates that 25 percent of Britain’s recorded seismic events were caused by people.

Most of these human-caused quakes are tiny, registering less than four on geologist’s seismic scales. These window-rattlers don’t occur along natural faults, and wouldn’t have happened without human activity — like mining tons of coal or potash. They occur when a mine’s roof collapses, for example, as in the Crandall Canyon collapse in Utah that killed a half-dozen miners last year.

But some human actions can trigger much larger quakes along natural fault lines. That’s because humans, with the aid of our massive machines, can sling enough mass around to shift the pattern of stresses in the Earth’s crust. Faults that might not have caused an earthquake for a million years can suddenly be pushed to failure, as Klose argues occurred during Australia’s only fatal earthquake in 1989.

Here are the top five ways to create an earthquake.

1. Build a Dam: Water is heavier than air, so when the valley behind a dam is filled, the crust underneath the water experiences a massive change in stress load. For example, the Hoover Dam area experienced hundreds of quakes as Lake Mead filled. University of Alaska seismologist Larry Gedney explained, "Since [the dam] reached its peak of 475 feet in 1939, the level of seismicity has fluctuated in direct response to water level.

2, Inject Liquid Into the Ground: In 1961, the Army decided that the best way to dispose of toxic waste from napalm production (among other things) was to drill a 12,000-foot-deep well in the Rocky Mountains and inject the bad stuff down it into the crust of the Earth. From 1962 to 1966, the Army deposited 165 million gallons of toxic waste into this hole in the Earth. Unfortunately, the injections probably triggered earthquakes in the region, and the Army shut the operation down. As seismologist Dave Wolny explained, "If you are doing deep well injection, you are altering the stress on the underlying rocks and at some point, the stress will be relieved by generating an earthquake."

3. Mine a Lot of Coal: Coal provides more than half the electricity in the United States and an even greater percentage in China. That means there are a lot of coal mines working overtime to pull the fossilized fuel out of the Earth. In total, miners pulled 6,195 million metric tons of coal out of the Earth in 2006 alone. And coal mines often have to pump water out along with the coal, sometimes extracting dozens of times as much water as coal. Add it up and you have a huge change in the mass of a region, and huge mass changes refigure the earthquake stresses of an area, sometimes increasing the chance of an earthquake and other times lowering it. Klose’s work suggests that more than 50 percent of the human-triggered earthquakes recorded came from mining operations.

4. Drill a Gusher Dry: Three of the largest human-caused quakes occurred near a natural-gas field in Uzbekistan, the Gazli. The combination of liquid extraction and injection changed the tectonic action in the field. The biggest of the trio registered as a 7.3. According to a major analysis (.pdf) by Russian scientists, "Few will deny that there is a relationship between hydrocarbon recovery and seismic activity, but exactly how strong a relationship exists has yet to be determined." They caution that in regions where tectonic activity is already high, extracting oil and natural gas could trigger strong quakes.

5. Create the World’s Biggest Building: Back in 2005, a geologist claimed that the world’s then-tallest building, the Taipei 101, which weighs in at more than 700,000 metric tons, was triggering earthquakes in a long-dormant fault in Taiwan. Klose doubts that the building actually did so, but said that it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility for a building to create an earthquake. The weight of the building, however, would have to be much greater than the Taipei 101’s, and even much larger than the Burj Dubai, currently still under construction but already the world’s tallest building.

Read the full story

No milk in tea please - Milk in tea may remove some of the heart health effects of black tea

Adding milk to tea totally wipes out the protective effect it has on the heart and blood vessels according to research published by the European Heart Journal.

According to the studies undertaken by scientists in Germany, black tea significantly improves the ability of the arteries to relax and expand. However, upon adding milk to black tea, the milk proteins counter this ability.

Experiments were carried out using laboratory rats and humans, measuring the endothelial function of the brachial artery before and after tea consumption.

Dr Verena Stangl, Professor of Cardiology (Molecular Atherosclerosis) at the hospital, explained “There is a broad body of evidence from experimental and clinical studies indicating that tea exerts antioxidative, anti-inflammatory and vasodilating effects, thereby protecting against cardiovascular diseases. As worldwide tea consumption is second only to that of water, its beneficial effects represent an important public health issue.”

Source

The Five Biggest Lies in Obam's Health Care Reform - NEWSWEEK

To the credit of opponents of health-care reform, the lies and exaggerations they're spreading are not made up out of whole cloth—which makes the misinformation that much more credible. Instead, because opponents demand that everyone within earshot (or e-mail range) look, say, "at page 425 of the House bill!," the lies take on a patina of credibility. Take the claim in one chain e-mail that the government will have electronic access to everyone's bank account, implying that the Feds will rob you blind. The 1,017-page bill passed by the House Ways and Means Committee does call for electronic fund transfers—but from insurers to doctors and other providers. There is zero provision to include patients in any such system. Five other myths that won't die:

1. You'll have no choice in what health benefits you receive.
The myth that a "health choices commissioner" will decide what benefits you get seems to have originated in a July 19 post at blog.flecksoflife.com, whose homepage features an image of Obama looking like Heath Ledger's Joker. In fact, the House bill sets up a health-care exchange—essentially a list of private insurers and one government plan—where people who do not have health insurance through their employer or some other source (including small businesses) can shop for a plan, much as seniors shop for a drug plan under Medicare part D.

2. No chemo for older Medicare patients.
The threat that Medicare will give cancer patients over 70 only end-of-life counseling and not chemotherapy—as a nurse at a hospital told a roomful of chemo patients, including the uncle of a NEWSWEEK reporter—has zero basis in fact. It's just a vicious form of the rationing scare. The House bill does not use the word "ration." Nor does it call for cost-effectiveness research, much less implementation—the idea that "it isn't cost-effective to give a 90-year-old a hip replacement."

3. Illegal immigrants will get free health insurance.
The House bill doesn't give anyone free health care (though under a 1986 law illegals who can't pay do get free emergency care now, courtesy of all us premium paying customers or of hospitals that have to eat the cost). Will they be eligible for subsidies to buy health insurance? The House bill says that "individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States" will not be allowed to receive subsidies.

4. Death panels will decide who lives.
On July 16 Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York and darling of the right, said on Fred Thompson's radio show that "on page 425," "Congress would make it mandatory…that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner, how to decline nutrition." Sarah Palin coined "death panels" in an Aug. 7 Facebook post.

5 .The government will set doctors' wages.
This, too, seems to have originated on the Flecksoflife blog on July 19. But while page 127 of the House bill says that physicians who choose to accept patients in the public insurance plan would receive 5 percent more than Medicare pays for a given service, doctors can refuse to accept such patients, and, even if they participate in a public plan, they are not salaried employees of it any more than your doctor today is an employee of, say, Aetna. "Nobody is saying we want the doctors working for the government; that's completely false," says Amitabh Chandra, professor of public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

To be sure, there are also honest and principled objections to health-care reform. Some oppose a requirement that everyone have health insurance as an erosion of individual liberty. That's a debatable position, but an honest one. And many are simply scared out of their wits about what health-care reform will mean for them. But when fear and loathing hijack the brain, anything becomes believable—even that health-care reform is unconstitutional. To disprove that, check the commerce clause: Article I, Section 8.

Read the full story at NEWSWEEK

Obama's health care bill revision - USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — A $950 billion, 10-year health care proposal released by President Obama on Monday mirrors a bill passed by the Senate last year but revises some of its most contentious provisions, from taxes to Medicare.

In crafting a proposal it hopes will revive the stalled debate, the White House relied heavily on the $871 billion bill passed by the Senate in December despite calls from House Minority Leader John Boehner and other Republicans to "hit the reset button."

Like earlier bills, Obama's latest measure would require every American to have some form of health insurance and would provide subsidies to help low-income families afford it. Consumers who aren't insured through a large employer would be able to buy and compare policies through online marketplaces called "exchanges."

But the White House plan, which will be the focus of a bipartisan summit Thursday, also includes several changes Obama hopes will ease friction among Democrats that has slowed progress on the effort for weeks. Among the adjustments:

THE PLAN: Obama puts forward health care bill

THE OVAL: Plan combines Senate and House bills

• "Cadillac" tax

A proposed 40% tax on high-priced or "Cadillac" health care plans would begin in 2018 instead of 2013, as originally proposed by the Senate. And the definition of a high-end policy would increase to $27,500 for a family, instead of $23,000.

The Senate's version of the tax, which was projected to raise $150 billion over 10 years, was opposed by labor unions. House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, had raised reservations about its impact. A typical family policy costs more than $13,000 in 2009, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, indicated that there would be support from labor leaders for Obama's new proposal. "Working families deserve health insurance that covers more and costs less," he said.

• New taxes

For the first time, Medicare taxes would be charged on investment income — such as stock dividends and rent from investment properties — and not just wages. The new, 2.9% assessment would kick in only for individuals with incomes above $200,000 a year and couples earning more than $250,000.

"This would be a move away from the basic way we've financed Medicare to say, 'Let's make it more inclusive,' " said Roberton Williams with the non-partisan Tax Policy Center.

Obama's plan also would impose $10 billion more in fees on drugmakers, up from the $23 billion the industry had agreed to. In a statement, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said it is reviewing the proposal.

• Employer mandate

Companies with more than 50 employees that don't offer health insurance would pay $2,000 a year per employee — more than double the fine included in the Senate bill. That fine, as before, would take effect if any employees receive federal subsidies to help pay for premiums.

The White House proposal, which would phase in the higher penalty for companies that have between 50 and 80 employees, falls short of the more stringent House language that would have required large companies to offer health coverage to their workers. Randel Johnson, a vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the new requirement will still be onerous for companies.

"A lot of these small employers are just starting out and some of them can't afford to provide health insurance," Johnson said. "Some who can't still may not be able to pay this fine."

• Medicare cuts

The new proposal would make deeper cuts in the Medicare Advantage program, which lets seniors buy Medicare coverage from private insurance companies. The Senate bill proposed $118 billion in cuts to the program over 10 years.

About 10 million seniors — one-fifth of all Medicare patients — are enrolled in the program, which often provides services not covered under traditional Medicare, such as vision insurance. Obama has criticized the program because it costs taxpayers 14% more per patient than regular Medicare.

• Special deals

Agreements negotiated with senators to benefit their states are also out. Among those was a provision that would have required the federal government to pay 100% of the cost of new Medicaid patients in Nebraska.

The new proposal would require federal taxpayers to cover the full cost of new enrollees in all states between 2014 and 2017, 95% between 2018 and 2019 and 90% after that. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who originally secured the benefit for his state, said extending it to others is "the right thing to do."

Read the full story at USA TODAY

Exercising feet can help avoid injuries to back, other body parts

Our feet are the most used and abused part of our body. Our feet are our foundation; they are built for energy propulsion and shock absorption of the entire body. Yet we give them so little attention. As we all get back to our fitness programs, take care of your feet so you can achieve your goals.

What Is It?

Training the feet means strengthening and creating mobility of the toes, arch and ankle through exercises such as spreading the toes, flexing and pointing the foot, toe curls and picking up objects with your feet. Watch small children and notice how their toes are constantly moving. Without training, we lose mobility and strength in our feet. The foot loses its ability to function appropriately. Train your feet by using tools such as marbles, sticks and tennis balls to build strength and flexibility.

Training your feet and lower leg muscles is important when building strength for any standing exercise. Lack of proper foot and/or arch strength and flexibility can contribute to fallen arches, ankle, knee, hip and back problems, pain and injury.

Who Would Like It?

Everyone can benefit from exercising the feet and ankles, no matter your age.

Who Wouldn't Like It?

If you have a foot and/or ankle injury, consult a health care provider regarding the best exercises for you.

The Sweat Factor

Training your feet is not as easy as it sounds.

It isn't as hard as running a marathon, but depending on how de-conditioned your feet are, you will get quite a workout.

First, you need to be barefoot. Get your toes and ankles moving. The ability to spread the toes and feel comfortable with a toe separator (used in pedicures) between your toes may cause you to sweat. If your feet are sensitive, sit down when you do the exercises so you can monitor the pressure you use.

The Klutz Factor

Foot training exercises can make anyone feel like a klutz. One of my favourite exercises is to stand with equal weight on the ball of your foot and the heel; then lift your big toe without lifting the other four toes. Then reverse it and lift your four toes without lifting the big toes. Many of us won't be able to move our toes because our feet have lost function by being locked up in shoes. Using your feet to pick up sticks will challenge co-ordination and strength.

Gear Needed

Good tools for training your feet include small towels, flat bands (stretchy big elastics, used in yoga etc.), sticks and toe separators. Try putting a towel on the floor: scrunch it up using your toes, then pick it up and throw it in the laundry basket. Foot rollers, foot massagers, even tennis balls can give your feet relief. You can also purchase foot-care packages with exercise charts. One of my faves is the book, Fantastic Feet and Foot Fitness Kit by Aliesa George.

How Much Does It Cost?

Most foot fitness training products are inexpensive -- many items can be found at dollar stores. Get a bag of marbles, pedicure toe separators and wooden sticks for a dollar or less. The Fantastic Feet and Foot Fitness Kit costs US$30 plus shipping at centerworks.com.

Bottom Line

Taking care of your feet will pay off, and the care fits easily into your life, anywhere and anytime. Get moving.

Source

Google Health lets users share their online records

Google Health has introduced a new feature that lets people share their online health records with designated doctors, friends, and family members.........
Click here for the story.

Heart Attack, Stroke and Cardiac Arrest Warning Signs

Heart Attack Warning Signs

Some heart attacks are sudden and intense — the "movie heart attack," where no one doubts what's happening. But most heart attacks start slowly, with mild pain or discomfort. Often people affected aren't sure what's wrong and wait too long before getting help. Here are signs that can mean a heart attack is happening:

• Chest discomfort. Most heart attacks involve discomfort in the center of the chest that lasts more than a few minutes, or that goes away and comes back. It can feel like uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain.
• Discomfort in other areas of the upper body. Symptoms can include pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw or stomach.
• Shortness of breath with or without chest discomfort.
• Other signs may include breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea or lightheadedness

As with men, women's most common heart attack symptom is chest pain or discomfort. But women are somewhat more likely than men to experience some of the other common symptoms, particularly shortness of breath, nausea/vomiting, and back or jaw pain.

Learn the signs, but remember this: Even if you're not sure it's a heart attack, have it checked out (tell a doctor about your symptoms). Minutes matter! Fast action can save lives — maybe your own. Don’t wait more than five minutes to call 9-1-1 or your emergency response number.

Calling 9-1-1 is almost always the fastest way to get lifesaving treatment. Emergency medical services (EMS) staff can begin treatment when they arrive — up to an hour sooner than if someone gets to the hospital by car. EMS staff are also trained to revive someone whose heart has stopped. Patients with chest pain who arrive by ambulance usually receive faster treatment at the hospital, too. It is best to call EMS for rapid transport to the emergency room.

Stroke Warning Signs
If you or someone with you has one or more of these signs, don't delay!

• Sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body
• Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding
• Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes
• Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination
• Sudden, severe headache with no known cause

Immediately call 9-1-1 or your emergency response number so an ambulance (ideally with advanced life support) can be sent for you. Also, check the time so you'll know when the first symptoms appeared. It's very important to take immediate action. If given within three hours of the start of symptoms, a clot-busting drug called tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) can reduce long-term disability for the most common type of stroke. tPA is the only FDA-approved medication for the treatment of stroke within three hours of stroke symptom onset.

A TIA, or transient ischemic attack, is a "warning stroke" or "mini-stroke" that produces stroke-like symptoms but no lasting damage. Recognizing and treating TIAs can reduce your risk of a major stroke. The usual TIA symptoms are the same as those of stroke, only temporary. The short duration of these symptoms and lack of permanent brain injury is the main difference between TIA and stroke.

Cardiac arrest strikes immediately and without warning.

Here are the signs:

• Sudden loss of responsiveness (no response to tapping on shoulders).
• No normal breathing (the victim does not take a normal breath when you tilt the head up and check for at least five seconds).

If these signs of cardiac arrest are present, tell someone to call 9-1-1 or your emergency response number and get an AED (if one is available) and you begin CPR immediately.

If you are alone with an adult who has these signs of cardiac arrest, call 9-1-1 and get an AED (if one is available) before you begin CPR.

Use an AED as soon as it arrives.

Dial 9-1-1 Fast
Heart attack and stroke are life-and-death emergencies — every second counts. If you see or have any of the listed symptoms, immediately call 9-1-1 or your emergency response number. Not all these signs occur in every heart attack or stroke. Sometimes they go away and return. If some occur, get help fast! Today heart attack and stroke victims can benefit from new medications and treatments unavailable to patients in years past. For example, clot-busting drugs can stop some heart attacks and strokes in progress, reducing disability and saving lives. But to be effective, these drugs must be given relatively quickly after heart attack or stroke symptoms first appear. So again, don't delay — get help right away!

Statistics
Coronary heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death in the United States. Stroke is the No. 3 cause of death in the United States and a leading cause of serious disability. That's why it's so important to reduce your risk factors, know the warning signs, and know how to respond quickly and properly if warning signs occur.

Act in Time
The American Heart Association and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute have launched a new "Act in Time" campaign to increase people's awareness of heart attack and the importance of calling 9-1-1 immediately at the onset of heart attack symptoms. Find the links here.

Source