For the first time in recent years, university scientists have identified data showing that more than 40,000 more people living in rural counties die annually than those in metropolitan areas. Research also shows the historical metropolitan mortality rate–more people dying in cities than in rural areas–has reversed since the mid-1980s, leading researchers to explore reasons why.

“This is a reversal of a century-long trend that may have long-term ramifications for rural health care policy,” lead researcher Jeralynn Cossman said. “In fact, if this disparity continues on its current trajectory, it will grow larger than our racial disparity in mortality.”

She noted that, while non-metropolitan mortality rates for stroke have been higher than metropolitan rates for years, their study found them to be higher for heart attacks, cancer and overall causes of death for the first time. Mortality rate projections for 2010-15 show the trend continuing, she added.

According to the MSU team, possible causes could be changes:

• In standards of health care that have not been implemented in rural areas,
• In rates of people without insurance coverage,
• In rates of disease occurrences, and
• Changes in health behaviors.

Final Thoughts

For most Americans, the ideal meal is fast, cheap, and tasty. The costs of putting value and convenience over nutrition and environmental impact.  Slaughterhouses and factory farms where chickens grow too fast to walk properly, cows eat feed pumped with toxic chemicals, and illegal immigrants risk life and limb to bring these products to market at an affordable cost.

Our nation’s food industry is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the
livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. These corporations are influencing our now compromised government regulatory agencies such as the USDA, FDA, and EPA — the industry basically regulates itself.

Walmart, Fast Food and box stores have replaced Main Street; the hidden cost of low prices are now showing it’s ugly head. Where are the butchers, bakers and sweet shops?  Now you only have to walk a few feet to an automatic opened door, scooter carts and isles and isles of products & produce that traveled over 1,000 of miles.

Solutions

• Read the label – get it local (not packaged)
• Join a CSA
• Shop at a farmer’s market
• Start the 100 Mile Diet
• Get educated

â’With all the news about freshwater environments and state of the Oceans, WCSâ’s discovery that a thriving population of Irrawaddy dolphins exists in Bangladesh gives us hope for protecting this and other endangered species and their important habitats,â’ said Dr. Steven E. Sanderson, President and CEO of the Wildlife Conservation Society. â’WCS is committed to conservation of these iconic marine species from dolphins, sea turtles, sharks to the largest whales.â’

The Irrawaddy dolphin grows to some 2 to 2.5 meters in length (6.5 to 8 feet) and frequents large rivers, estuaries, and freshwater lagoons in South and Southeast Asia. In Myanmarâ’s Ayeyarwady River, these dolphins are known for â’cooperative fishingâ’ with humans, where the animals voluntarily herd schools of fish toward fishing boats and awaiting nets. With the aid of dolphins, fishermen can increase the size of their catches up to threefold. The dolphins appear to benefit from this relationship by easily preying on the cornered fish and those that fall out of the net as the fishermen pull it from the water. In 2006, WCS helped establish a protected area along the Ayeyarwady River to conserve this critically endangered mammal population.

WCS is currently working closely with the Ministry of Environment and Forests in Bangladesh on plans for establishing a protected area network for both Irrawaddy and Ganges River dolphins in the Sundarbans mangrove forest. Funding is critical to sustaining these activities along with WCSâ’s long-term efforts to study the effects of climate change on this habitat, support sustainable fishing practices, and develop local ecotourism projects.

Fossil shark skeletons are extremely rare because sharks do not have bony skeletons like most fishes â’“ instead their skeleton is made of cartilage. The new specimen is the most complete fossil known from a white shark. It includes parts of the spinal column, the head skeleton, and a mouthful of 222 teeth.

â’It is very unusual for a shark, which has a cartilaginous skeleton, to preserve these details in the fossil record,â’ said Mr. Dana Ehret, a graduate student at the Florida Museum of Natural History and lead author of the article.

In sharp contrast to the wide expanses of open water that it used to dominate, the new fossil was discovered in the dry desert region of coastal Peru. In 1988, Dr. Gordon Hubbell, a co-author of the paper, and local collectors were examining the 4-million-year-old sediments of the Pisco Formation when they came across the shark remains. These large areas of sediments in southwestern Peru are becoming increasingly well known for a variety of fossils of whales, birds, and even an aquatic sloth, Thalassocnus.

Photograph of the specimen as it appears in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, with nose toward the top of the photo and spinal column toward the bottom.

Frequently only isolated teeth of shark are present in these ancient sediments. To get a complete picture of a sharkâ’s dentition, scientists have to put these isolated teeth together using information from modern sharks. Having a fossil such as this one with its teeth in their natural positions is important because the shapes of particular teeth and their orientations in the jaw help determine how shark species are related to one another.

â’The completeness of this specimen allows us to take a closer look at the interrelationships between white and mako sharks,â’ said Ehret.

The undoubted all-time kings of the shark world were the so-called â’megatoothâ’ sharks. The largest of these, such as Carcharocles (â’Carcharodonâ’) megalodon were contemporaries of the Peruvian shark and may have reached lengths of 60 feet. With a jaw gape of more than nine feet, they would have put great whites in the shade.

Nevertheless, many scientists have argued that the megatooths were close cousins of the great whites. However, the new specimen suggests that the modern great white shark is more closely related to the modern mako shark â’“ a smaller shark that feeds mostly on fishes â’“ than to the prehistoric giant â’˜megatoothâ’ sharks. If true, then the modern great white and the megatooth sharks might have evolved to large size independently. The new fossil specimen was probably 17 feet long in life, similar in size to a large modern great white.

Because this specimen also preserved part of the spinal column, scientists were able to determine that the individual was at least 20 years old when it died. The age determination was based on counting the alternating light and dark bands present in the vertebrae, which calcify with age. Such bands have been shown to represent seasonal changes in modern sharks; this was tested in the fossil by examining difference in the isotopic composition of the dark and light bands, which reflects seasonal temperature changes. A modern great white shark of similar age likely would have been larger, suggesting that this fossil species grew at a slower rate.

Personal Reminder

This means that those who believe in the literal 7 day Creation or that the earth is only 6,000 years old are wrong.  There is no possible way to have a 4,000,000 year old fossil with a such a small timeline.  

For all those home schooled kids out there . . . when Mommy tells you “God created the earth in 7 (24 hour) days” or “earth is only 6,000 – 10,000 years old” – your mommy is wrong.  She is lying to keep you from becoming a successful independent thinker.  

You can, if you chose, believe in God and creation. There are many options:

• God started the evolutionary process 
• Each of the 7 days, mentioned in the bible, actually were billions of years
• A little evolution a little creation

You can make up your own mind and still believe in God.  Do not let anyone tell you different.  But there is no way to explain a 4,000,000 fossil — if you take the bible literally.

So now what? Literally, the very first few pages of the bible have been proven false.  How does that feel?  Makes you doubt everything else in the bible.  Well, that doesn’t have anything to do with faith.  Do you need proof to have faith?  That is not religion, its science.  

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
Buddha

DOUBLE DARE YOU

â’Images of disaster haunt the American national consciousness and dominate the media,â’ says Emily Godbey, National Endowment for the Humanities Chair at Albright College in Reading, Pa., who is writing book on â’American Rubbernecking,â’ which examines how representations of disaster have become a part of popular American visual culture.

â’No one wants to be in a disaster, but we all want to look at it â’“ and will pay to see it,â’ she says of a tradition that began in the 19th century.

â’Disasters are certainly not new, but attitudes towards them in the late 19th century certainly were. At that time, American audiences started to view horrific events through the lens of leisure, entertainment and the pleasures of the senses.â’

â’They paid for tickets to see plays and movies about accidents and disasters. They bought books, newspapers and postcards. They even paid to see staged train crashes,â’ she says.

Of course, part of it is related to psychology. â’We like activities that bring us right up against the reality that we wonâ’t be here forever,â’ she says. â’But the desire to see ruin and catastrophe is also linked to the development of a capitalist economy, a growing dissatisfaction with the routine life resulting from the industrial revolution and a subsequent desire to buy thrilling experiences as an antidote to boredom,â’ she says.

â’Nineteenth century audiences learned that â’“ at least from a comfortable chair â’“ disasters and accidents are thrilling, even enjoyable,â’ she says. â’Those early consumers have a lot in common with contemporary American audiences who see blockbuster films with explosions and dangerous car chases.â’

Personal Note

I look, just in case I know them.

Scientists have developed a paramagnetic paint that can change color like a football fan changes a T-shirt. Itâ’s all part of the amazing world of materials thatâ’s covered in three-minute podcasts on â’Materials Radio,â’ a new service of ASM International, the materials information society.

â’Have a New Car Color Every Dayâ’ was written and produced by Andrea Dangelewicz of the Clemson University Materials Advantage Chapter. Hereâ’s how the quick-change paint works:

While you drive, pushing a button sends electric current through a special polymer paint containing paramagnetic nanoparticles. The current creates a magnetic field that affects the spacing of crystals within the particles, which changes their ability to reflect lightâ’¦and voila! A white car becomes Steelers blackâ’¦or Cardinals red.

Nearly two-dozen podcasts on â’Materials Around Usâ’ and â’The Science of Materialsâ’ are available on Materials Radio to bring the excitement of materials to middle school students, parents and teachers. Visit www.materialsradio.com for free downloads.

Materials Radio is an initiative of the K-12 Education Subcommittee of ASM Internationalâ’s Education Committee. â’The podcasts come from the most creative minds in our university membership,â’ said K-12 chair Jan Edwards. â’Each one was written and recorded by Materials Advantage students who want to share their love of materials with middle school students.â’

â’Itâ’s all about making materials science accessible and fun.â’

ASM International is Everything Material, the Ohio-based society serving the materials science and engineering community. With 36,000 members worldwide. ASM provides authoritative information and knowledge on materials and processes from the structural to the nanoscale. Visit www.asminternational.org for details.

Issues

You go into the store for a bit, you children waiting change the color and you take 2 hours to find where you parked.

Police report a green sadan going south bound on 495 . . . what to do?

Extra reading : Ten Most Outrageous Paint Jobs of 2009