Nobel Scientist Who Warned of Thinning Ozone Dies

Los Angeles - F. Sherwood Rowland, the Nobel prize-winning chemist who sounded the alarm on the thinning of the Earth's ozone layer and crusaded against the use of man-made chemicals that were harming earth's atmospheric blanket, has died. He was 84.

Rowland died Saturday at his home in Corona del Mar of complications from Parkinson's disease, the dean of the University of California, Irvine's physical sciences department said Sunday.

"We have lost our finest friend and mentor," Kenneth C. Janda said in a statement. "He saved the world from a major catastrophe: never wavering in his commitment to science, truth and humanity and did so with integrity and grace."

Rowland was among three scientists awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize for chemistry for explaining how the ozone is formed and decomposed through chemical processes in the atmosphere.

The prize was awarded more than two decades after Rowland and his post-doctoral student Mario Molina calculated that if human use of chlorofluorocarbon, a byproduct of aerosol sprays, deodorants and other household products was to continue at an unaltered rate, the ozone layer would be depleted after several decades. Their work at UC Irvine built upon findings by atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen.

Their prediction caught enormous attention and was strongly challenged partly because CFC's non-toxic properties were thought to be environmentally safe. Their work gained widespread recognition more than a decade later with the discovery of the ozone hole over Earth's polar regions and leaders of nations worldwide began to act to ban or curb usage of the chemicals.

"It was to turn out that they had even underestimated the risk," a Nobel committee said in its award citation for Rowland, Molina and Crutzen.

Molina said his former mentor never shied from defending his work or advocating a ban on CFC.

"He showed me that if we believe in the science ... we should speak out when we feel it's important for society to change," Molina told the Associated Press.

His work on ozone depletion made Rowland a prominent voice for scientists concerned about global warming.

"Isn't it a responsibility of scientists, if you believe that you have found something that can affect the environment, isn't it your responsibility to do something about it, enough so that action actually takes place?" Rowland said at a White House climate change roundtable in 1997.

"If not us, who? If not now, when?" he asked.

Rowland, who was known by those who knew him as "Sherry," was survived by his wife of nearly 60 years, Joan, a son and a daughter.

New Figures: More of U.S. at Risk to Sea Level Rise

Washington D.C. - Nearly 4 million people across the United States, from Los Angeles to much of the East Coast, live in homes more prone to flooding from rising seas fueled by global warming, according to a new method of looking at flood risk published in two scientific papers.

The cities that have the most people living within three feet (one meter) of high tide — the projected sea level rise by the year 2100 made by many scientists and computer models — are in Florida, Louisiana, and New York. New York City, often not thought of as a city prone to flooding, has 141,000 people at risk, which is second only to New Orleans' 284,000. The two big Southeast Florida counties, Miami-Dade and Broward, have 312,000 people at risk combined.

All told, 3.7 million people live in homes within three feet of high tide. More than 500 US cities have at least 10 percent of the population at increased risk, the studies said.

"Southeast Florida is definitely the highest density of population that's really on low coastal land that's really most at risk," said lead author Ben Strauss, a scientist at Climate Central. Climate Central is a New Jersey-based group of scientists and journalists who do research about climate change.

The studies look at people who live in homes within three feet of high tide, whereas old studies looked just at elevation above sea level, according to work published Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research and an accompanying report by Climate Central. That's an important distinction because using high tide is more accurate for flooding impacts, said study co-author Jonathan Overpeck, a scientist at the University of Arizona's Institute of the Environment. And when the new way of looking at risk is factored in, the outlook looks worse, Overpeck said.

"It's shocking to see how large the impacts could be, particularly in southern Florida and Louisiana, but much of the coastal U.S. will share in the serious pain," Overpeck said.

And it's not just residents of coastal areas who will be hurt by this, said Sharlene Leurig, a senior manager for the insurance program at Ceres, a Boston-based investment network. Most coastal areas get flood insurance from the federal program and with more flooding, the program will have to spend more and that will come out of all taxpayers' wallets, she said.

Sea level has already risen about 8 inches since 1880 because warmer waters expand, Strauss said. In addition to the basic physics of ever-warming water expanding, scientist say hotter climate will cause some melting of glaciers in Greenland and western Antarctica that would then cause seas to rise even more.

Flooding from Hurricane Irene last year illustrated how vulnerable coastal places such as Manhattan are with a combination of storms and sea level rise, Strauss said.

Using data from the latest census, Climate Central also has developed an interactive system that allows people to check their risk by entering a ZIP code.

Sea level rise experts at the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration who weren't part of the studies said the results make sense and were done by experts in the field.

"All low elevation places in the many urban areas along the coast will become more vulnerable," said S. Jeffress Williams, scientist emeritus for the USGS, who wasn't part of the studies. He pointed to Boston, New York City, Norfolk, Va., New Orleans, Charleston, S.C., Miami and Washington and its Virginia suburbs. "More people and infrastructure will be at increasing risk of flooding."

Man Denied Liver Transplant for Using Prescribed Marijuana: “Probably Too Late for Me”

By Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Los Angeles - Norman B. Smith, the 63-year-old cancer patient at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles who was denied a liver transplant because he used medical marijuana, says in a new interview that it’s probably too late for him to make a recovery even if he could get the surgery he needs.

 

Diagnosed three years ago with inoperable liver cancer, Smith was prescribed medical marijuana by Cedars-Sinai oncologist Steven Miles to help his patient deal with the effects of chemotherapy. Then Smith became eligible for a liver transplant, but was removed from the list after testing positive for marijuana.

 

Hospital officials insisted that Smith stop using marijuana for at least six months, undergo random drug testing, and attend weekly Alcoholics Anonymous classes before they will consider putting him back on the list. They say the policy has nothing to do with morality and is a decision based on the health of the patient.

 

Smith says he’s frustrated with the policy, but is resigned to the fact that he may have missed his chance at getting a new liver. “It’s probably too late for me,” Smith told Reason TV, “but I hope it makes it easier for the next guy…and there are plenty of us out there.”

 

Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for Safe Access, says she knows of a dozen patients who have died because of the same denial of a transplant.

Irish Citizen Kept Out of United States

Ireland/United States - A simple statement to a friend through Twitter got an Irish citizen barred from the United States.

Leigh Van Bryan sent this tweet to a friend in reply to a friend asking him about his upcoming plans. 

It turns out before he even landed in Los Angeles his tweet was flagged by the Department of Homeland Security.  In this context, according to Van Bryan, the word "destroy" meant "party".

After explaining this to the DHS officials, he and his friend Emily Bunting were still denied access into the country, held for 12 hours, then sent back to Ireland.

Van Bryan was also asked about another tweet, this one a joke, stating he was planning to "dig up Marilyn Monroe", the infamous Hollywood actress.

"The Homeland Security agents were treating me like some kind of terrorist. I kept saying they had got the wrong meaning from my tweet but they just told me 'You've really fucked up with that tweet, boy,' " said Van Bryan.


This comes shortly after Twitter announced its new policy in which they will be censoring tweets if a country's government requests them to do so (which makes at least Thailand happy).  The tweet can still be seen in other countries, just not the country in which it originated.  The FBI is also looking for a tool to help them monitor sites like Facebook and Twitter more closely and effectively. The CIA is doing the same thing, and has been for years if not decades, though whether it's now doing it with a program or not is still unknown.


Note: I do realize this is from the Daily Mail, which is America's version of Fox News (i.e. unreliable) but it seems the Twitter account in question is real.  Since the tweets are protected, I can't exactly look for the exact one myself.

Pollution Increaseds Disease Risk in Black Women

I would like to preface this by saying this goes for all people, but as black women usually have to deal with more health issues than other groups - given they need to deal with not just the health issues that go along with being black, but disproportionately being a poor single mother too - this is an issue of utmost importance.

Reuters Health - In a study of more than 4,000 black women in Los Angeles, those who lived in areas with higher levels of traffic-related air pollution were at increased risk of developing diabetes and high blood pressure.

The researchers, led by Patricia Coogan at Boston University, found that black women living in neighborhoods with high levels of nitrogen oxides, pollutants found in traffic exhaust, were 25 percent more likely to develop diabetes and 14 percent more likely to develop hypertension than those living in sections with cleaner air.

Previous research has linked air pollution to health problems such as diabetes, stroke, heart disease and even higher rates of death.

"The public health implications are huge," said Dr. Jiu-Chiuan Chen, who studies the effects of air pollution at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles, especially for black women, who have higher rates of diabetes and high blood pressure than white women. He was not involved in the current work.

Forty-four percent of all black women in the U.S. have high blood pressure and about 11 percent have diabetes compared with 28 percent and roughly seven percent, respectively, of white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Black Americans also experience higher levels of air pollution than white Americans, according to the study authors.

For their investigation, published in Circulation, the researchers followed participants in the ongoing Black Women's Health Study for 10 years. The women were mainly recruited from subscribers to Essence magazine, and none had diabetes or high blood pressure when the study began in 1995.

Over the course of a decade, 531 women developed high blood pressure and 183 women were diagnosed with diabetes.

The findings on their relative risks for those conditions take into account several other potential influences, including how heavy the women were, whether they smoked and other stressors, including noise levels at participants' homes.

Although researchers measured average pollution levels near participants' homes for only one year of the ten-year study, Coogan told Reuters Health that air pollution patterns remained relatively constant over the entire study period.

While Coogan and her colleagues estimated nitrogen oxide concentrations near participants' homes, they did not account for commuting habits or exposure to air pollution at work. According to the researchers, Americans, on average, spend about 70 percent of their time at home.

In addition to measuring nitrogen oxides, a proxy for traffic pollution, the researchers evaluated levels of fine particulate matter. Many sources contribute to this type of air pollution, including traffic, power plants and industrial processes.

Women who lived in areas with higher fine particulate exposures also faced an increased risk of diabetes and high blood pressure, although statistically the link was weak and could have been due to chance.

Previous reports have suggested that air pollution particles small enough to make their way into the blood stream may contribute to a narrowing of blood vessels, which can lead to high blood pressure and reduce sensitivity to insulin.

More research needs to be done before these results can be generalized to all women or even all black women living in the U.S., Coogan cautions. Earlier studies did not find a link between air pollution and increased incidence of diabetes or high blood pressure in men, she said.

Because people don't always have control over where they live, policy makers must recognize the dangers of living and working in areas with high air pollution, Chen said.

To reduce the risk of high blood pressure and diabetes, he added, individuals can take steps, such as exercising, losing excess weight, quitting smoking and limiting salt intake.

TV Producer Won't Fight Extradition to Mexico

LOS ANGELES — A reality show producer charged with murdering his wife during a Mexican vacation is dropping his extradition fight and will stand trial in Cancun, his lawyer said Tuesday.

Bruce Beresford-Redman's attorney said the onetime "Survivor" producer has decided not to appeal a Los Angeles federal court ruling upholding his extradition to Mexico.

"He feels he is not going to prevail on appeal and he'd like to get moving on proving his innocence," said attorney Richard Hirsch.

He said the producer could be sent to Mexico within 60 days following review of the extradition request by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Beresford-Redman, 40, is being held in a Los Angeles federal prison.

Monica Beresford-Redman, 42, disappeared from a Cancun resort where the couple was vacationing with their two children last year. Her body was found stuffed in a sewer cistern.

"He is innocent and it is his hope that the court in Mexico will assure that he receives a fair trial in which, he is confident, he will be exonerated," Hirsch said.

The family of Monica Beresford-Redman has said the couple went to Cancun to try to save their marriage. They claim Bruce Beresford-Redman, who is also the co-creator of the series "Pimp My Ride," was having a long-term affair with another woman. His wife, originally from Brazil, owned and operated a restaurant in Los Angeles.

U.S. District Judge Philip S. Gutierrez upheld an extradition order earlier this month, saying that there are many pages of competent evidence supporting prosecution claims that the producer killed his wife.

"All of this evidence points to homicide committed by the fugitive," said the judge's ruling.

Prosecutors presented statements from hotel guests who said they heard loud arguing and cries of distress coming from the couple's room on the night Monica Beresford-Redman went missing.

The producer's attorneys have claimed the noises came from Beresford-Redman and his children playing loud games throughout the night. They introduced statements from the couple's 6-year-old daughter to corroborate the claim, but judges who have reviewed the case were not swayed.

Beresford-Redman had been ordered to stay in Mexico after his wife's body was found but he left and returned to his home in Los Angeles. He voluntarily surrendered to U.S. authorities after a warrant was issued in Mexico for his arrest.

Hirsch said that Beresford-Redman's family has been in contact with a Mexican lawyer who will represent him at trial. Mexican courts do not have juries, and the producer will be tried by the same judge who issued the warrant for his arrest, Hirsch said.

If he is convicted of aggravated homicide in Mexico, he faces 12 years to 30 years in a Mexican prison.

His two small children have been placed in the custody of Beresford-Redman's parents with visitation by their mother's sisters.