Andrew Scrivani (@AndrewScrivani on Twitter and Instagram) is a freelance photographer and a regular contributor to The New York Times. He writes the blog making SundaySauce.
There are certain dishes you need to be careful with when photographing so as to avoid the ?what the heck is that?? factor. You don?t want to rely on the headline or the text to explain to your audience exactly what it is seeing.
For this week?s Good Appetite column by Melissa Clark, we had that moment with the curry chicken recipe. Meats that are slow-cooked and have lots of sauce can sometimes be unidentifiable and lack form. The thighs and breasts look very similar when smothered in sauce, and they do not say ?chicken.?
It is no coincidence that a good number of food shots of chicken dishes include a drumstick. The leg does not have an identity crisis and has a shape that lends itself to multiple plating options.
You really want your image to capture the attention of people who merely scan the page looking for something interesting to eat or to make. You need to tap into the familiar and the recognizable in order to be evocative. Here, as in other arenas, a shapely leg can really catch the eye.
You know that something, somewhere, has gone seriously wrong when every last software update requires you to update a proprietary download manager before you can even think about getting your hands on whatever trivial bug fix that's on offer. [XKCD] More »
BERLIN (AP) ? Deutsche Telekom AG, the parent company of T-Mobile USA, is raising its bid for MetroPCS Communications Inc. in what it calls its "best and final offer."
The announcement late Wednesday comes ahead of a special shareholder meeting being held by Dallas-based MetroPCS Friday.
The deal would merge the fourth- and fifth-largest cellphone carriers in the U.S.
Telekom says the original offer had T-Mobile USA contributing $15 billion in shareholder loans to the combined company. The new offer reduces those loans to $11.2 billion, "significantly increasing the equity value of the combined company."
Telekom says it will also reduce the interest rate on those loans by 50 basis points.
The ownership structure remains unchanged, with 26 percent of shares being held by current MetroPCS shareholders and 74 percent by Deutsche Telekom.
Four ad execs who ran the first internet ad banner ? an AT&T ad that ran on HotWired in 1994 ? have all admitted to Digiday that, basically, they now hate it.
This isn't news, of course. Everyone in the ad business knows web ad banners are the lowest common denominator of web advertising.
Users largely ignore them. The creative space they offer is limited. It's just that replacing them with something more interesting or effective at scale is easier said than done.
Web ad banners persist because they can run virtually anywhere, across hundreds of millions of web sites and apps.
But it was nice to some straight talk from the people who created Frankenstein's monster.
G.M. O?Connell, founder of Modem Media, the agency that created the first banners, said:
The fact that it?s migrated from Prodigy to the Internet to the cell phone is a joke. The creativity is disappointing at best. It?s easy for me to say it sucks, but I don?t know what the better thing is.
Go to Digiday to see what Andrew Anker, CEO at HotWired; Joe McCambley, creative director at Modem Media; and Bill Clausen, the client at AT&T, the first banner ad advertiser, all had to say about it.
Omega-3 fatty acids more effective at inhibiting growth of triple-negative breast cancerPublic release date: 9-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Diana Quattrone diana.quattrone@fccc.edu 215-728-7784 Fox Chase Cancer Center
WASHINGTON, DC (April 9, 2013)Researchers from Fox Chase Cancer Center have found that omega-3 fatty acids and their metabolite products slow or stop the proliferation, or growth in the number of cells, of triple-negative breast cancer cells more effectively than cells from luminal types of the disease. The omega-3s worked against all types of cancerous cells, but the effect was observed to be stronger in triple-negative cell lines, reducing proliferation by as much as 90 percent. The findings will be presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013 on Tuesday, April 9.
Omega-3 fatty acids are found in oily fish like sardines and salmon, and also in oils derived from plants like hemp and flax. Previous studies suggest these compounds can negatively affect critical mechanisms in cancer cells, namely those responsible for proliferation and for apoptosis, or programmed cell death. Lead author on the study Thomas J. Pogash, a scientific technician in the Fox Chase Cancer Center lab of Jose Russo, MD, says the new work underscores the important role common compounds found in food may play in keeping cancer at bay.
"Diet can play a critical role in breast cancer prevention," says Pogash. "When you compare a western diet to a mediterranean diet, which has more omega-3s, you see less cancer in the mediterranean diet. They eat much more fish."
Breast cancer is a heterogeneous group of cancers comprising diseases that differ on the molecular level. Patients with different types of breast cancer respond differently to treatments. Four distinct categories of the disease are generally recognized. Two of those, luminal A and luminal B, grow in the luminal cells that line milk ducts in the breast and have receptors for estrogen and progesterone (prognosis is generally better for patients with luminal A than with luminal B). A third category includes tumors that test positive for the HER2 receptor.
Tumors in the fourth category, triple-negative, lack receptors for progesterone, estrogen, and a protein called HER2/neu. As a result, this type of disease is insensitive to treatments like trastuzumab, which disrupts the HER2 receptor, and tamoxifen, which targets the estrogen receptor.
Russo notes that no targeted therapies are currently available for patients diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer. Combination chemotherapies are the standard of care for early-stage disease.
"This type of cancer, which is found more frequently in Latina and African-American women, is highly aggressive and has a low survival rate," says Russo. "There is not any specific treatment for it."
When a cancer cell digests omega-3s, the fatty acid is broken down into smaller molecules called metabolites. Russo, Pogash, and their colleagues tested the effect of large omega-3 parent molecules, as well as their smaller metabolic derivatives, on three luminal cell lines and seven lines that included basal-type triple-negative cells.
Omega-3 and its metabolites were observed to inhibit proliferation in all cell lines, but the effect was dramatically more pronounced in the triple-negative cell lines. In addition, the metabolites of omega-3 reduced the motility, or ability to move, by 20-60 percent in the triple-negative basal cell lines.
This study is part of a consortium between Fox Chase Cancer Center and Pennsylvania State University under a five-year grant awarded by the Komen Foundation. Russo is the principal investigator of the project at Fox Chase. Andrea Manni, MD, leader of the Pennsylvania State University team, has extended this work to animal models, studying the anticancer effects of omega-3s and its metabolites on mouse models of triple-negative breast cancer.
Russo and his colleagues are working on two related projects, one on the role of epigenetic events in the mechanism of cell transformation and another on the potential action of peptides of the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) on breast cancer prevention.
###
In addition to Russo, Manni, and Pogash, investigators on this project included Ricardo Lpez de Cicco, Benjamin Pressly, and Irma H. Russo at Fox Chase Cancer Center; and Julie A. Himmelberger at DeSales University; and Shantu Amin, Krishne Gowda, and Karam El-Bayoumy at Pennsylvania State University.
Fox Chase Cancer Center, part of Temple University Health System, is one of the leading cancer research and treatment centers in the United States. Founded in 1904 in Philadelphia as one of the nation's first cancer hospitals, Fox Chase also was among the first institutions to receive the National Cancer Institute's prestigious comprehensive cancer center designation in 1974. Fox Chase researchers have won the highest awards in their fields, including two Nobel Prizes. Fox Chase physicians are routinely recognized in national rankings, and the Center's nursing program has achieved Magnet status for excellence three consecutive times. Fox Chase conducts a broad array of nationally competitive basic, translational, and clinical research and oversees programs in cancer prevention, detection, survivorship, and community outreach. For more information, call 1-888-FOX-CHASE (1-888-369-2427) or visit http://www.foxchase.org.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Omega-3 fatty acids more effective at inhibiting growth of triple-negative breast cancerPublic release date: 9-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Diana Quattrone diana.quattrone@fccc.edu 215-728-7784 Fox Chase Cancer Center
WASHINGTON, DC (April 9, 2013)Researchers from Fox Chase Cancer Center have found that omega-3 fatty acids and their metabolite products slow or stop the proliferation, or growth in the number of cells, of triple-negative breast cancer cells more effectively than cells from luminal types of the disease. The omega-3s worked against all types of cancerous cells, but the effect was observed to be stronger in triple-negative cell lines, reducing proliferation by as much as 90 percent. The findings will be presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013 on Tuesday, April 9.
Omega-3 fatty acids are found in oily fish like sardines and salmon, and also in oils derived from plants like hemp and flax. Previous studies suggest these compounds can negatively affect critical mechanisms in cancer cells, namely those responsible for proliferation and for apoptosis, or programmed cell death. Lead author on the study Thomas J. Pogash, a scientific technician in the Fox Chase Cancer Center lab of Jose Russo, MD, says the new work underscores the important role common compounds found in food may play in keeping cancer at bay.
"Diet can play a critical role in breast cancer prevention," says Pogash. "When you compare a western diet to a mediterranean diet, which has more omega-3s, you see less cancer in the mediterranean diet. They eat much more fish."
Breast cancer is a heterogeneous group of cancers comprising diseases that differ on the molecular level. Patients with different types of breast cancer respond differently to treatments. Four distinct categories of the disease are generally recognized. Two of those, luminal A and luminal B, grow in the luminal cells that line milk ducts in the breast and have receptors for estrogen and progesterone (prognosis is generally better for patients with luminal A than with luminal B). A third category includes tumors that test positive for the HER2 receptor.
Tumors in the fourth category, triple-negative, lack receptors for progesterone, estrogen, and a protein called HER2/neu. As a result, this type of disease is insensitive to treatments like trastuzumab, which disrupts the HER2 receptor, and tamoxifen, which targets the estrogen receptor.
Russo notes that no targeted therapies are currently available for patients diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer. Combination chemotherapies are the standard of care for early-stage disease.
"This type of cancer, which is found more frequently in Latina and African-American women, is highly aggressive and has a low survival rate," says Russo. "There is not any specific treatment for it."
When a cancer cell digests omega-3s, the fatty acid is broken down into smaller molecules called metabolites. Russo, Pogash, and their colleagues tested the effect of large omega-3 parent molecules, as well as their smaller metabolic derivatives, on three luminal cell lines and seven lines that included basal-type triple-negative cells.
Omega-3 and its metabolites were observed to inhibit proliferation in all cell lines, but the effect was dramatically more pronounced in the triple-negative cell lines. In addition, the metabolites of omega-3 reduced the motility, or ability to move, by 20-60 percent in the triple-negative basal cell lines.
This study is part of a consortium between Fox Chase Cancer Center and Pennsylvania State University under a five-year grant awarded by the Komen Foundation. Russo is the principal investigator of the project at Fox Chase. Andrea Manni, MD, leader of the Pennsylvania State University team, has extended this work to animal models, studying the anticancer effects of omega-3s and its metabolites on mouse models of triple-negative breast cancer.
Russo and his colleagues are working on two related projects, one on the role of epigenetic events in the mechanism of cell transformation and another on the potential action of peptides of the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) on breast cancer prevention.
###
In addition to Russo, Manni, and Pogash, investigators on this project included Ricardo Lpez de Cicco, Benjamin Pressly, and Irma H. Russo at Fox Chase Cancer Center; and Julie A. Himmelberger at DeSales University; and Shantu Amin, Krishne Gowda, and Karam El-Bayoumy at Pennsylvania State University.
Fox Chase Cancer Center, part of Temple University Health System, is one of the leading cancer research and treatment centers in the United States. Founded in 1904 in Philadelphia as one of the nation's first cancer hospitals, Fox Chase also was among the first institutions to receive the National Cancer Institute's prestigious comprehensive cancer center designation in 1974. Fox Chase researchers have won the highest awards in their fields, including two Nobel Prizes. Fox Chase physicians are routinely recognized in national rankings, and the Center's nursing program has achieved Magnet status for excellence three consecutive times. Fox Chase conducts a broad array of nationally competitive basic, translational, and clinical research and oversees programs in cancer prevention, detection, survivorship, and community outreach. For more information, call 1-888-FOX-CHASE (1-888-369-2427) or visit http://www.foxchase.org.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Carnegie scientists have found that the plant species making up an ecosystem are better predictors of ecosystem chemistry than environmental conditions such as terrain, geology, or altitude. This is the first study using a new, high-resolution airborne, chemical-detecting instrument to map multiple ecosystem chemicals. The result, published in the April 8, 2013, Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a key step toward understanding how species composition affects carbon, nitrogen and other nutrient cycling, and the effects of climate change, land use, and other ecosystem pressures.
Two important ecological goals are to understand the distribution and diversity of plants in their environment and how nutrients and energy flow through ecosystems. Both are essential to predict how the environment may change in the future, but untangling the relative importance of different influences has remained challenging.
Lead author Kyla Dahlin explained: "We used the high-resolution mapping capabilities of the Carnegie Airborne Observatory Airborne Taxonomic Mapping System (CAO AToMS), and found that the plant communities that make up Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve in Northern California were the strongest predictors. They explained 46% to 61% of the variation in plant chemical traits, and these traits hold the key to how ecosystems function."
The plant communities at Jasper Ridge include savanna/grasslands, evergreen oaks and chaparral, wetland ecosystems, and more. The researchers measured four traits mapped with CAO AToMS from the air: leaf nitrogen, leaf carbon, leaf water concentration, and canopy water content.
The researchers combined the airborne data with maps of known environmental regulators, such as terrain and geology, and maps of plant communities and land-use history to ask whether environmental conditions or plant communities were more indicative of the chemical variation of the vegetation. They found that environmental conditions played a role, but that plant communities were the stronger predictor.
Co-author Greg Asner, principal investigator of the CAO, commented, "The results are a powerful demonstration of the use of the latest airborne spectroscopic mapping techniques to understand the multiple chemicals in the foliage of vegetation, allowing us to relate the chemical information to biodiversity and environment. These are the tools of the future for ecological research and conservation science."
"This study is especially exciting for Carnegie because it answers questions about the roles of landscapes and plant communities that were posed by Carnegie investigators in the early decades of the 20th century," said co-author Chris Field, director of the Department of Global Ecology.
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Carnegie Institution: http://www.ciw.edu
Thanks to Carnegie Institution for this article.
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Tom Bihn has just announced a larger version of their previous Synapse 19 backpack. The Synapse 25 has five main design updates: Webbing Loops for Cache with Rails system Bottom Pocket Piping Bottom Webbing Loop More O-rings Reconfigured Organizer Pockets The addition of a secure laptop sleeve system transforms the Synapse 25 into a checkpoint [...]
On April 6, I was asked by the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence to close out their teen summit.
What?s a teen summit?? FCADV, in a effort to educate and incorporate teens in preventing domestic violence, puts on an annual conference to educate, inspire, and motivate the teens in attendance to go out and work on preventing domestic violence.
These teens have taken the innititiate to decide to end domestic violence once and for all. Many people question what a group of teens can truly do?? The answer is amazing!
Groups of teens have put on carnivals, youtube videos and PSA?s with thousands of visits, websites for teens, and plays all over the country speaking to everyone about what a healthy relationship is and why we need to end DV.
In fact multiple student lead Anti Domestic Violence clubs and organizations have been created and reached national attention with congress and the senate.
The Teen movement is not one to be swept underneath the rug, and if you are about to,?all you have to do is do a youtube or google search about teens preventing domestic violence and you will see a whole new view of what Teens are doing?.and you will wonder why adults aren?t doing more.
My goal was to inspire them. My goal was to motivate them. My goal was to make them want to do something to change domestic violence right now!
This is my speech. I share it so that maybe it will inspire you, or someone you send it to?to do something to End Domestic Violence!
?You, everyone in this room below the age of 20. You did not create this problem that we now call Intimate Partner Violence or Domestic Violence. You did not create this. You did not develop or continue it. This is not your problem. This is a problem you inherited. But you know something, everyone in this room above the age of 20..they didn?t create this problem either. They didn?t ask for, they didn?t perpetuate it, and they didn?t want it for you. This problem of domestic abuse was inherited from their parents, and their parents, and their parents. This is a very old problem that needs to be eradicated. This is a problem that has become normalized.
?This problem is so normalized that when some hears that you are part of a domestic violence relationship they say ?oh yeah.? Because they not only know what that means. They?ve seen it before. They?ve heard about it before.? They?ve seen the PSAs. They?ve seen it on TV, movies, radio, songs, poems, viral videos, reality tv, and youtube. It?s been there and it always has been part of their lives. It?s so normalized that we accept it exists, we accept it?s happening, and we accept that it?s a normal part of our existence.
?There have been so many times that I have been in front of groups of adults and teens alike, and I say that we can end this and they respond: No We can?t. It?s been here, and it always will. It?s just ?the way it is?, it?s ?the way we are?, ?it?s the normal way of things?. I?ve heard this blamed on drugs and anger as well as race, hereditary, and religion.
?But never once do people say ?maybe, just maybe, there?s a way to end it. Maybe it?s not ?just the way it is?. But we, right here, know there is a way to end it and stop the abuse altogether. We know abuse is taught. We know abuse is learned. We know there is a way to end this abuse?even though it?s so normalized now.
?Prevention is possible! Once flying was impossible. Once radios were impossible. Once TV was impossible. Once the 5 minute mile was impossible. Once computers were impossible. In fact, in 1901, the head of the patent office said ?everything that there will never be any new inventions from this point on.?
?Once tobacco cessation was thought impossible. Once electric cars and solar panels were considered impossible. At one point it was considered normal and ?just the way it is? when hundreds of thousands of people were displaced from their homeland and massacred by the millions because they were in the way.
?At one point our society and our reality had racial lines and lines that divided the different skin colors. Different nationalities, country-persons, and nationalities were not seen to exist in the same world. Once racial equality was sen as impossible.? And someone stood up and said, maybe just maybe we have the opportunity to end that. Maybe just maybe we have the ability to change this. Maybe we can change what so many people see as normal.
?Remember, this movement didn?t come about because of money, agencies, coalitions, or technology. This movement is not fighting to cure a disease or feed anyone?.No. This movement was created by a group of people who believed that hurting anyone, especially the person you say you love is wrong. This movement was started by men and women who merely wanted husbands to stop hurting their loving mates. They simply wanted the violence to stop! We have inherited this movement and this cause from the great men and women who simply asked for everyone to see the violence against women as a reality that needed to stop. As Sir Isacc Newton said, I did not do this. I was merely able to do this,? by standing on the shoulders of giants. And my friends, that is exactly where we are. Look around at the older people in the room, they have lead us to this point. They have wielded their belief that there should only be respectful relationships free of power and control, and they have spread this message worldwide.? But remember, this movement was not formed to protect women, or men, or couples ? No! This movement was created to protect all people from being abused and killed. Stop people from being verbally and mentally abused. Stop people from being sexually and physically abused. To stop people from being hurt and killed.
?But how?? How do we stop this. It?s such a simple answer to end all of this. It?s not like we?re looking for the exact right chemical that will attack a disease in just the right way to destroy it. It?s not like we are cre4ating life?thank you ladies in the room,? I for one am awed by the fact that you can do this! No?we are simply asking people to not hurt the one they love. All we have to do is stop people from hurting others. All we have to do is stop people from hurting the people they love. How simple it sounds. Btu now, let?s here from those who will inherit our planet and this problem.
?Young ladies and young gentlemen, what are your ideas given no budgets, given no restrictions?what can we do?
?
?Lets start teaching. Teaching every person from 1 to 101. We teach every person we can, and every person we can get in front of. We teach them what a healthy relationship looks like, feels like, and acts like. We talk about healthy relationships, we talk about gender equality, and we talk about how being a man is being respectful to women. Then we reteach the adults again and again?it takes longer for them to learn. We spread it in the newspaper, we spread it in the movies, the you tube videos,?add ideas they came up with, we blog about it, we tweet about it, we tumble about it, we kik about it, we instagram about it, we use every resource we have to make sure every person understands it. We make sure that healthy relationships are on every single persons tongue?then you know what happens: We succeed. We create a world where abuse is seen as foreign as the ?N? word is, as foreign as the thought that ?nazism is a good idea?.
?Today, we look back and see what our ancestors did to the races of color and the Native Americans and we can?t help but hold our head low because of these memories. But somebody did stand up. Somebody did end these atrocities, so that we CAN look back and shake our heads in disbelief.
?Want to hear something even cooler. You!? You are happening. Everything I just said is already starting to happen. Isn?t that awesome? People ages 9,10,11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18 are already starting to do amazing things. Look at the ideas we just heard. The amazing great and incredible ideas we just heard? There are people who are in this room right now! That?s what?s so cool. We don?t have to wait till we become adults to create positive change?you?re doing it right now. We can do this right now! That is te beginning. You are creating that beginning. But you can?t stop! You must continue! After this conference, after this day, after you?re in your own school?you have to keep the momentum going. You can keep this up
?Now is that time. Now is the time to decide enough is enough. Now is the time to say, yes we can do something. Now is the time to say it is a time for change. Now is the time to say say we have a solution to ending IPV. Now is the time we change the world of our great grand kinds. Now is that critical turning point in history. Now is that moment. The moment where we change what?s normal. Now, is the moment we change what has been accepted for so long as normal. Now is the time we recreate what is seen as a ?normal relationship? into what a ?healthy relationship? truly is!
?Now is the time to decide we are the agents of change. We are the ones that will create a solution when the others couldn?t. We are the ones that will develop new ideas, develop better ways of getting into people?s heads, and WE are the ones that will see the end of this plague. The actions that we do,today, will reinvent the world and end this problem that has plagued our society for so long. Remember if someone doesn?t believe that this will change, it is your job to change their mind and show everyone that abuse can and will be a thing of the past.? We are the future, we are the answer. Now is the time to stand up and join me?.stand up?.join me up here.
?We are the agents of change and we are the ones that will change this world. Who are we? Who are we?
?Yes, we are the ones that will end this abused and change the status quo!
?We are the ones that will end this abuse NOW!?
As much as I can?I will post my speeches so people can read the speech that was heard by hundreds?and maybe, just maybe it will inspire and motivate them to do something.
home ? life ? Chattanooga hyperbaric chamber helps ...
published Monday, April 8th, 2013
Local veterinary clinic often uses hyperbaric chamber for pets
After acquiring a hyperbaric chamber in 2005, the Regional Institute for Veterinary Emergencies and Referrals, often called RIVER, is continually finding new uses for the device to help animals recover quicker from many illnesses. The pressurized chamber allows more oxygen to reach infected tissues and helps the animal heal faster.
Megan Bishop and veterinarian Michael Lane monitor the air pressure during Lexie's treatment. "; objLink.IsAboveImage = false; objLink.LinkTarget = "_blank"; objLink.Render();
Veterinarian technician Megan Bishop prepares the hyperbaric chamber for Lexie the Yorkshire terrier's treatment. The Regional Institute for Veterinary Emergency and Referrals is one of two Tennessee veterinary clinics that has a hyperbaric chamber, a device traditionally used to treat scuba and deep-sea divers for the "bends."
Worst was a punctured lung. As a result, the 13-pound Shih Tzu/schnauzer mix developed a life-threatening, drug-resistant infection.
Lexie's owners, Bert and Sharon Brown of Ooltewah, took her to the Regional Institute for Veterinary Emergencies and Referrals (RIVER) on Amnicola Highway, where she received treatments in one of only two hyberbaric chambers used by veterinarians in Tennessee. The other chamber -- which provides super-high levels of oxygen -- is at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine in Knoxville.
Bert Brown credits the hyberbaric chamber for saving Lexie's life.
"It was scary when we first brought her in," he recalls. "She was attacked by a stray dog that weighed at least 150 pounds. It was like a bear attacking a human. The doctors told us she had about a 50/50 chance of survival.
"The treatments absolutely saved her life," he says.
Today, Lexie is home and healing nicely, says veterinarian Michael Lane, president of the Hamilton County Veterinary Medical Association and an associate of Regional Institute for Veterinary Emergencies and Referrals.
While the hyberbaric chamber at RIVER is used for cats and dogs, chambers in other locations such as universities are used to treat horses and farm animals, says Lane."It primarily helps by increasing oxygen levels in wounds and inflammatory tissues. However, it speeds healing, decreases edema (swelling)" and makes antibiotics more effective, he says.
Lane says the cost is $110 for the first treatment and about $50 for subsequent treatments. Lexie required 12 treatments.
Justin Shmalberg, a veterinarian and professor at the University of Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine in Gainesville, says the college will begin clinical trials this summer to determine how the hyperbaric chamber is effective in speeding recoveries and healing animals, according to The Associated Press.
"Any place we have swelling of tissue, we oftentimes are thinking about the hyperbaric chamber as something we could do to decrease that," he says.
At RIVER, the cylinder-shaped chamber, which cost around $90,000, is designed specifically to treat small, medium and large animals, up to about 180 pounds.
RIVER acquired its chamber in 2007 and it has been an integral part of its medicine ever since.
"It's constantly in use," Lane says. "The cases are amazing. Animals that may have lost tissue in the past have been able to be treated with success in our chamber. Snake bites, antibiotic-resistant infections and neurologic injuries seem to have the most amazing results."
Hyperbaric chambers have been used for decades to treat scuba and deep-sea divers with the "bends" -- nitrogen in the bloodstream created by coming up too fast from high-pressure depths -- as well as people with burn injuries and other traumatic injuries. But use for pets is recent.
"Hyperbaric oxygen chambers are becoming more well-known and popular amongst veterinarians, but there are still very few facilities in the country that offer the treatments," Lane says. "The more veterinarians are learning about the treatment, the more popular they will become."
Inside the chamber, oxygen is present at much higher pressures than normal, so larger amounts are pumped into the body through breathing and cellular absorption. The bloodstream, lymph system and cerebrospinal fluid carry the oxygen, "enabling oxygen to reach damaged tissue at least three to four times faster than normally diffused by red blood cells," according to hyperbaricveterinarymedicine.com.
Lane says the number of treatments -- known as "dives" -- needed by an animal depends on the severity of its injuries.
"Treatments range from one to two hours in the chamber and normally occur once or twice a day dependent upon the patient's condition," he says. "Total number of dives may vary from one to 20 or more.
"I occasionally wish we had more than one chamber," he adds. "Sometimes we have more pets than we can squeeze into treatments in a 24-hour period."
The Regional Institute for Veterinary Emergency and Referrals is a referral hospital, Lane says, so "most all of our patients have a primary care veterinarian that has referred their patient for this therapy."
Megan Bishop, a licensed veterinarian technician at RIVER, says "there's not a single day we don't use the chamber" and she notes that, when the animals are inside, they're monitored through a large glass port in the side of the chamber.
"They're comfortable in the chamber," Bishop says.
Brown says he and his wife visited Lexie twice a day during her stay at RIVER.
"I've loved animals all my life and I'm grateful that, because of them, my wife and I still have Lexie."
Contact staff writer Karen Nazor Hill at khill@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/karennazorhill. Subscribe to her posts on Facebook at www.facebook.com/karennazorhill.
about Karen Nazor Hill...
Feature writer Karen Nazor Hill covers fashion, design, home and gardening, pets, entertainment, human interest features and more. She also is an occasional news reporter and the Town Talk columnist. She previously worked for the Catholic newspaper Tennessee Register and was a reporter at the Chattanooga Free Press from 1985 to 1999, when the newspaper merged with the Chattanooga Times. She won a Society of Professional Journalists Golden Press third-place award in feature writing for ...
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Former Guns N' Roses drummer Matt Sorum joined cellist Yo-Yo Ma on Capitol Hill to urge lawmakers Tuesday to increase funding for the arts in a year of deep federal budget cuts.
The rocker and classical musician played a jam session briefly together for a gathering of legislators and arts advocates from across the country who planned to visit congressional offices. They performed with bagpiper Cristina Pato and dancing star Lil Buck.
Sorum said his mother was a music teacher and that his high school classes in orchestra, jazz and marching band were critical in launching his career in music and in business. More recently he has started a charity to support arts education in Los Angeles.
This weekend, Guns N' Roses is being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Sorum said he was excited to visit Washington first to press Congress for funding.
"This is the coolest thing I've done since Madison Square Garden, I've got to say. Slash is going to be really jealous," he said, referring to the lead guitarist from Guns N' Roses and now the group Velvet Revolver. "If I can navigate the music business, I'm going to have fun navigating Congress."
The group Americans for the Arts is pushing for funding to be restored to $155 million for both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Last year both agencies received about $146 million and lost about $7 million of that due to Congress' automatic budget cuts.
House Republican budget leaders have called for eliminating the two agencies altogether.
Still, Republican Rep. Leonard Lance of New Jersey joined advocates Tuesday, saying the arts benefit the entire nation.
Arts programs face a daunting budget environment. At $139 million now for the current fiscal year, the arts endowment has lost about $30 million in annual funding since 2010. It's an even bigger drop since the endowment's high point of $176 million in arts funding in 1992.
Ma has pressed for greater focus and funding for the arts in education, joining a White House initiative to help turn around failing schools with arts programs. He also called for including the arts with the educational emphasis on science, technology, engineering and math. Creativity connects the other subjects, Ma said, and helps students become self-motivated and innovative.
"It seems to me that many of the skills in terms of what children need in order to succeed are actually best modeled through the arts," Ma said.
___
Americans for the Arts: http://www.artsusa.org/
___
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Defining the scope of skills for family medicine residenciesPublic release date: 9-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Siobhan Gallagher siobhan.gallagher@tufts.edu 617-636-6586 Tufts University, Health Sciences Campus
BOSTON (April 9, 2013) Medical school graduates entering one family medicine residency program might receive training that is markedly different than another family medicine residency program. While these new medical school graduates, called residents, will gain the clinical knowledge needed to practice medicine, their scope of skills depend on their specific experiences as residents. A team of healthcare professionals from the Family Medicine Residency Program at Tufts University School of Medicine have published a paper in the Journal of Graduate Medical Education that suggests a way to evaluate family medicine residents based on their level of competency.
"Family medicine resident training is currently determined by the types of patients that the residents treat at their specific hospital or clinic, rather than being determined by the curriculum. We have created a list of entrustable professional activities or EPAs to assess clinical competencies that clearly define the breadth of skills required at the completion of residency," said Allen Shaughnessy, Pharm.D., M.Med.Ed., professor at Tufts University School of Medicine and fellowship director of the Tufts University Family Medicine Residency Program at Cambridge Health Alliance.
Shaughnessy worked with a team of healthcare professionals from Tufts University School of Medicine's Family Medicine Residency Program to develop a list of 76 EPAs around which to structure a competency-based assessment of family medicine residents.
"Competence is defined as the ability to do something successfully. Defining the list of 'somethings' in family medicine residencies has been difficult for both educators and regulators," said Gregory L. Sawin, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor at Tufts University School of Medicine and program director, Tufts Family Medicine Residency at Cambridge Health Alliance.
Competency-based medical education ensures that medical residents acquire a certain set of skills, behaviors, and attitudes in addition to the clinical knowledge needed to practice medicine. When these skills, behaviors, and attitudes are integrated and performed in an educational setting, they become known as entrustable professional activities. An activity is "entrustable" when a supervisor deems that a medical resident could have performed a task without supervision; in this case, the resident has demonstrated competency in a given area. As an example, the authors write:
"For example, a competent family medicine physician is expected to provide care for a child with a respiratory illness. This includes eliciting a history, performing a physical examination, arriving at a diagnosis, and implementing a plan of care that is evidence based and takes into account the needs and values of the patient. Although each of these skills can be separately measured and documented in a variety of settings, the overall performance of them in situ constitutes the entrustable activity."
In addition to confirming that family medicine residents know how to treat a specific disease or condition, the EPAs can ensure that residents acquire skills that enable them to effectively interact with medically-diverse patients, uphold ethical principles, use information sources at the point of care, and develop skills relating to running a medical practice.
The leading effort to define competencies is the Outcome Project, from the Accreditation on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and the American Board of Medical Specialties. The Outcome Project is shifting medical education from assuring quality through intense training processes to measuring outcomes and specific skill. This shift in medical training was the result of calls for greater accountability in all aspects of the profession.
Shaughnessy notes that the Outcome Project leaves the definition of actual competencies and their assessment to individual residencies. Interpretation may lead to vague competency categories that are not specific enough to provide definitive guidance to residents or faculty members regarding what learning needs to be accomplished and documented. In response, the EPAs provide a detailed, concrete approach to training and evaluating residents in how they provide care.
The initial EPAs presented in the paper were developed at the Tufts University School of Medicine Family Medicine Residency Program, based on the ACGME guidelines, over a two year period. Twenty-one experts were recruited to further determine and refine the EPAs that are most relevant to family medicine education. The experts participated in two rounds of anonymous, internet-based surveys to compile the final list of EPAs. The process began with 91 EPAs that were then narrowed down to 76 based on the feedback.
The EPAs in the paper are intended to be used as a starting point for family medicine residency programs that are interested in moving toward a competency-based educational approach.
"Incorporation of EPA- and competency-based education will challenge traditional residency models that have a 'one size fits all' rotation structure. Family medicine residency programs may need to be more flexible to allow residents to have rotation experiences to meet the EPAs," said Shaughnessy. "Overall, the EPAs will provide family medicine residents with a broad range of clinical experiences and will guide educators when evaluating the skill sets that residents must acquire."
Shaughnessy is also on an expert panel of the family medicine milestones project, a part of the Outcome Project that brings together review committees with specialty medical organizations and boards to develop specific benchmarks of skills and knowledge that residents in every specialty must achieve at certain identified points or stages during their residency education. The panel on which Dr. Shaughnessy serves is in the area of information mastery/evidence-based medicine in the practice-based learning and improvement competency domain, one of six clinical competency areas.
Additional authors of the paper are Jennifer Sparks, M.D., formerly a master teacher fellow at the Tufts Family Medicine Residency Program; Molly Cohen-Osher, M.D., and Kristen H. Goodell, M.D., both lecturers in family medicine at TUSM; and Joseph Gravel, Jr., M.D., former program director at the Tufts University Family Medicine Residency at Cambridge Health Alliance and current residency director of the Lawrence Family Medicine Residency program and associate professor of family medicine at TUSM.
###
Shaughnessy AF, Sparks J, Cohen-Osher M, Goodell KH, Sawin, GL, Gravel J. 2013 (March). Entrustable Professional Activities in Family Medicine. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 5(1), 112-118. doi: 10.4300/JGME-D-12-00034.1.
About Tufts University School of Medicine and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences
Tufts University School of Medicine and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts University are international leaders in innovative medical education and advanced research. The School of Medicine and the Sackler School are renowned for excellence in education in general medicine, biomedical sciences, special combined degree programs in business, health management, public health, bioengineering and international relations, as well as basic and clinical research at the cellular and molecular level. Ranked among the top in the nation, the School of Medicine is affiliated with six major teaching hospitals and more than 30 health care facilities. Tufts University School of Medicine and the Sackler School undertake research that is consistently rated among the highest in the nation for its effect on the advancement of medical science.
If you are a member of the media interested in learning more about this topic, or speaking with a faculty member at the Tufts University School of Medicine or another Tufts health sciences researcher, please contact Siobhan Gallagher at 617-636-6586.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Defining the scope of skills for family medicine residenciesPublic release date: 9-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Siobhan Gallagher siobhan.gallagher@tufts.edu 617-636-6586 Tufts University, Health Sciences Campus
BOSTON (April 9, 2013) Medical school graduates entering one family medicine residency program might receive training that is markedly different than another family medicine residency program. While these new medical school graduates, called residents, will gain the clinical knowledge needed to practice medicine, their scope of skills depend on their specific experiences as residents. A team of healthcare professionals from the Family Medicine Residency Program at Tufts University School of Medicine have published a paper in the Journal of Graduate Medical Education that suggests a way to evaluate family medicine residents based on their level of competency.
"Family medicine resident training is currently determined by the types of patients that the residents treat at their specific hospital or clinic, rather than being determined by the curriculum. We have created a list of entrustable professional activities or EPAs to assess clinical competencies that clearly define the breadth of skills required at the completion of residency," said Allen Shaughnessy, Pharm.D., M.Med.Ed., professor at Tufts University School of Medicine and fellowship director of the Tufts University Family Medicine Residency Program at Cambridge Health Alliance.
Shaughnessy worked with a team of healthcare professionals from Tufts University School of Medicine's Family Medicine Residency Program to develop a list of 76 EPAs around which to structure a competency-based assessment of family medicine residents.
"Competence is defined as the ability to do something successfully. Defining the list of 'somethings' in family medicine residencies has been difficult for both educators and regulators," said Gregory L. Sawin, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor at Tufts University School of Medicine and program director, Tufts Family Medicine Residency at Cambridge Health Alliance.
Competency-based medical education ensures that medical residents acquire a certain set of skills, behaviors, and attitudes in addition to the clinical knowledge needed to practice medicine. When these skills, behaviors, and attitudes are integrated and performed in an educational setting, they become known as entrustable professional activities. An activity is "entrustable" when a supervisor deems that a medical resident could have performed a task without supervision; in this case, the resident has demonstrated competency in a given area. As an example, the authors write:
"For example, a competent family medicine physician is expected to provide care for a child with a respiratory illness. This includes eliciting a history, performing a physical examination, arriving at a diagnosis, and implementing a plan of care that is evidence based and takes into account the needs and values of the patient. Although each of these skills can be separately measured and documented in a variety of settings, the overall performance of them in situ constitutes the entrustable activity."
In addition to confirming that family medicine residents know how to treat a specific disease or condition, the EPAs can ensure that residents acquire skills that enable them to effectively interact with medically-diverse patients, uphold ethical principles, use information sources at the point of care, and develop skills relating to running a medical practice.
The leading effort to define competencies is the Outcome Project, from the Accreditation on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and the American Board of Medical Specialties. The Outcome Project is shifting medical education from assuring quality through intense training processes to measuring outcomes and specific skill. This shift in medical training was the result of calls for greater accountability in all aspects of the profession.
Shaughnessy notes that the Outcome Project leaves the definition of actual competencies and their assessment to individual residencies. Interpretation may lead to vague competency categories that are not specific enough to provide definitive guidance to residents or faculty members regarding what learning needs to be accomplished and documented. In response, the EPAs provide a detailed, concrete approach to training and evaluating residents in how they provide care.
The initial EPAs presented in the paper were developed at the Tufts University School of Medicine Family Medicine Residency Program, based on the ACGME guidelines, over a two year period. Twenty-one experts were recruited to further determine and refine the EPAs that are most relevant to family medicine education. The experts participated in two rounds of anonymous, internet-based surveys to compile the final list of EPAs. The process began with 91 EPAs that were then narrowed down to 76 based on the feedback.
The EPAs in the paper are intended to be used as a starting point for family medicine residency programs that are interested in moving toward a competency-based educational approach.
"Incorporation of EPA- and competency-based education will challenge traditional residency models that have a 'one size fits all' rotation structure. Family medicine residency programs may need to be more flexible to allow residents to have rotation experiences to meet the EPAs," said Shaughnessy. "Overall, the EPAs will provide family medicine residents with a broad range of clinical experiences and will guide educators when evaluating the skill sets that residents must acquire."
Shaughnessy is also on an expert panel of the family medicine milestones project, a part of the Outcome Project that brings together review committees with specialty medical organizations and boards to develop specific benchmarks of skills and knowledge that residents in every specialty must achieve at certain identified points or stages during their residency education. The panel on which Dr. Shaughnessy serves is in the area of information mastery/evidence-based medicine in the practice-based learning and improvement competency domain, one of six clinical competency areas.
Additional authors of the paper are Jennifer Sparks, M.D., formerly a master teacher fellow at the Tufts Family Medicine Residency Program; Molly Cohen-Osher, M.D., and Kristen H. Goodell, M.D., both lecturers in family medicine at TUSM; and Joseph Gravel, Jr., M.D., former program director at the Tufts University Family Medicine Residency at Cambridge Health Alliance and current residency director of the Lawrence Family Medicine Residency program and associate professor of family medicine at TUSM.
###
Shaughnessy AF, Sparks J, Cohen-Osher M, Goodell KH, Sawin, GL, Gravel J. 2013 (March). Entrustable Professional Activities in Family Medicine. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 5(1), 112-118. doi: 10.4300/JGME-D-12-00034.1.
About Tufts University School of Medicine and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences
Tufts University School of Medicine and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts University are international leaders in innovative medical education and advanced research. The School of Medicine and the Sackler School are renowned for excellence in education in general medicine, biomedical sciences, special combined degree programs in business, health management, public health, bioengineering and international relations, as well as basic and clinical research at the cellular and molecular level. Ranked among the top in the nation, the School of Medicine is affiliated with six major teaching hospitals and more than 30 health care facilities. Tufts University School of Medicine and the Sackler School undertake research that is consistently rated among the highest in the nation for its effect on the advancement of medical science.
If you are a member of the media interested in learning more about this topic, or speaking with a faculty member at the Tufts University School of Medicine or another Tufts health sciences researcher, please contact Siobhan Gallagher at 617-636-6586.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
If Windows 8 tablets with Intel's Clover Trail silicon under the hood were once a curiosity, well, they're certainly not novelties anymore. We've seen lower-powered hybrids from virtually every PC maker, providing a cheaper counterpoint to Core i5 and i7 systems, but still offering useful accessories like keyboard docks. In addition to one of our favorite Atom-powered slates, the ThinkPad Tablet 2, Lenovo is shilling the IdeaTab Lynx (also known as the IdeaTab K3011) for $549 and up. So how does this system stack up? Click through to find out.
This photo released by the Carson City Sheriff's Office shows William McCune. A sheriff says a body believed to be that of Nevada's chief insurance examiner, McCune, was found Saturday April 6, 2013, in a river in Carson City, and four suspects were arrested in connection with his disappearance.
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By Sofia Perpetua, NBCNews.com
The body of Nevada's missing chief insurance examiner was found wrapped in a blanket and bound with duct tape in a river in Carson City on Saturday. Four suspects in their 20s were arrested and charged with murder in connection to the case, according to the Carson City Sheriff?s Department.
Sheriff Deputies were called to the apartment of William McCune, 62, after he failed to board a flight with a co-worker and other employees on Thursday.
At the residence, where McCune lived alone, authorities found evidence of a bloody and violent struggle, but no sign of McCune or any signs of forced entry.
Four people were quickly arrested but any motive or relationship to the victim is still unknown, Carson City Sheriff Ken Furlong told The Associated Press. Furlong added that McCune?s death might be related to ?personal? matters and not be work-related.
The victim had no known family in Carson City but the police is trying to locate his relatives in another city.
All four of the suspects -- Michael Evans, 23; Anthony Elliot, 20; Raul Garcia, 22; and Makyla Blackmore, 20 -- were charged with murder.
Carson City Sheriff's Dept. / AP
Michael Paul Evans, Anthony Elliot
Evans was arrested in Carson City and the other three suspects were arrested on the Las Vegas strip on Saturday morning.
?This crime is very bizarre because of three reasons: the age difference between the suspects and the victim, the number of offenders and the fact that one of offenders is a woman,? Furlong told NBC News.
?The motive was theft and we believe at least two of the suspects knew the victim," he added.
An autopsy on the body is being performed by the Washoe County medical examiner?s office to confirm identification and rule on the cause of death.
It is not yet known what weapon or weapons were involved in the crime, authorities said.
The victim?s pick-up truck wasn?t found but its license plates were located on Friday night at a residence that suspect Evans frequented, Sheriff Furlong said.
McCune was working as a chief insurance examiner since December 2009, said the Nevada Division of Insurance spokesman Jake Sunderland to The Associated Press.
Carson City is the capital of Nevada and has a population of 50,000.
To ring in this year's Holocaust Memorial Day, the classy hackers at Anonymous took down a bunch of Israeli government websites on Sunday and say they caused over $3 billion in damage. But they didn't totally get away with it. Within a few hours of the attack which Anonymous says affected 100,000 websites, 40,000 Facebook pages, 5,000 Twitter accounts and 30,000 bank accounts, an Israeli hacker broke into the website that Anonymous had set up for the attack, dubbed Operation Israel. Instead of the original anti-Israel messages that were originally on the site to protest Israel's treatment of Palestine, the Israeli hacker rejiggered the site to play "Hatikvah," Israel's national anthem.?
RELATED: Hackers Discover Government Employees Watch Porn
Israel's playing this one super cool. Despite Anonymous's claims of massive damage, the country's cyber security officials say that the attack caused minimal damage. "So far it is as was expected, there is hardly any real damage,"?Yitzhak Ben Yisrael from the government's National Cyber Bureau told the press. "Anonymous doesn't have the skills to damage the country's vital infrastructure. And if that was its intention, then it wouldn't have announced the attack ahead of time. It wants to create noise in the media about issues that are close to its heart." This is more or less what Anonymous always does, often with varying levels of success.
RELATED: LulzSec Document Release Targets Arizona Law Enforcement
Regardless of the amount of damage done, the scale of the attack is bound to be embarrassing for the Israeli government. This is the second time that Anonymous has successfully taken down Israeli government websites. The original #OpIsrael attack happened last November and affected some 600 sites and resulted in the hackers released personal information for thousands of high-ranking officials. Israel denied then that the attack did any damage, and some tech writers balked at the effort, saying that Anonymous had lost its swagger.
RELATED: Hackers Respond to Hacking Arrests with More Hacking
If that was the case then, Anonymous just looks insensitive now. The Holocaust and any holiday commemorating it is hardly a topic to goof around about. And given Israel's allege involvement in the infamous Stuxnet cyber attack, it's hard to believe a bunch of zany hackers with a bad DDoSing habit could really stand up to their security teams. They didn't either.?
A new yacht launched Friday by L?rssen, the German luxury boatbuilder, is now the largest motor yacht in the world. It's name is Azzam, and at 590 feet long, it has officially bumped Roman Abramovich's yacht ? the 536-foot Eclipse ? from its number one ranking.
L?rssen won't comment on the ownership. But industry sources say the owner is likely the royal family of Abu Dhabi.
L?rssen will say that the boat was "without the a doubt the most challenging yacht that has ever been built." Aside from its sheer size, Azzam had to be super-fast and able to ply shallow waters "while providing luxurious and sophisticated accommodation to its guests."
For speed, the boat is powered by jets rather than propellers. It's got 94,000 horsepower under the hood. And it hit a top speed of 30 knots, which is about 30 percent faster than most mega-yachts. "It's like a 590-foot jet ski," said one executive involved in the project.
There are no immediate descriptions available of the interior, though we know it's in the hands of French interior designer Christophe Leoni, who's using a "turn of the century Empire style." Nor do we have critical details on the number of Jacuzzis, rotating beds or helicopter pads. But the main salon, at 95 feet long by 60 feet wide has no pillars dividing the space.
Read more: Russian Billionaire's Yacht Makes Waves in NYC
So think Napoleon, if he had a megayacht and $600 million to spend.
Azzam will go through sea trials later this summer and will officially launch sometime in the fall.
There?s a common belief that the pending concussion litigation against the NFL ultimately will result only in the lawyers making money.
The so-called expert witnesses likely will, too.
Often overlooked in complex litigation involving esoteric medical knowledge and jargon is the fact that the men and women who have the education and experience to share that knowledge and jargon with a judge and a jury get paid a lot of money.
That reality routinely results in a blurring of ethical lines.? According to Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada of ESPN.com, Dr. Robert Cantu previously served as a senior adviser to the NFL?s Head, Neck and Spine committee ? but he also has consulted with the lawyers who are suing the NFL on behalf of thousands of former players.
?It was an informational session, just like I get paid to give a talk someplace else,? Cantu said of a February 2012 presentation to the lawyers representing the players.? He also justified working for the players suing the league by explaining that the NFL could hire him to serve as an expert witness, which would block from him talking to those suing the league.
?If [the NFL] wanted to put me on their payroll, to defend their case, then I?m not gonna say boo about those issues [to the plaintiffs],? said Cantu, who gets $800 per hour for legal services, $5,000 for depositions, and $8,000 per day for trial testimony.
Cantu?s attitude underscores one of the biggest problems with the litigation industry.? Many experts aren?t necessarily motivated by the pursuit of justice but by the supplementation of their total income with the exorbitant fees they charge.? And since there?s plenty of discretion to be exercised when telling the truth, their testimony often can be molded to help whichever side of a case hires them first.
Here?s a concrete example, for those of you who are still awake.
Eleven years ago, I represented a former employee of a major U.S. low-cost big-box retailer who had been forced to take an alcohol test under circumstances that, as the jury concluded, didn?t justify an invasion of the employee?s privacy rights via the drawing of a blood sample.? The case included testimony from an expert witness who had been hired by the employer to justify the conclusion, based on the blood-alcohol concentration measured by the test, that the employee had indeed been intoxicated at work.
On cross-examination, I confronted the expert witness with a passage from a written report on the issue of blood-alcohol testing.? In the report, the author expressed concern about the reliability of efforts to use blood-alcohol measurements to determine a person?s BAC at an earlier point in time.
I read the sentence to the expert witness, and I asked the expert witness if he agreed with the statement.
He said, ?No.?
So I read it to him again, slowly.? I asked him if he agreed with that statement.
Again, he said, ?No.?
So I handed him the report, showed him the first page of it, and asked him to tell the judge and the jury who had written the report.
The expert witness, after taking a gulp, said his own name.
And that?s pretty much all I ever needed to know about the world of expert witnesses.
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