The "News" thread.

[gwillybj]

Alien Life & Exoplanets
http://news.discovery.com/space/alien-life-exoplanets

Hubble Discovers Far-Out Baby Planet

Jun 14, 2013 01:40 AM ET
by Irene Klotz

Even by celestial standards, the span between a newly found suspected baby planet and its host star is astronomical — 7.5 billion miles, which is about twice as far as Pluto orbits the sun.

To date, no other other extrasolar planet is as far away from its host star as the fledgling world circling TW Hydrae, a small red dwarf located about 176 light-years from Earth.

PHOTOS: Hubble’s Latest Mind Blowing Cosmic Pictures
http://news.discovery.com/space/galaxies/hubble-space-telescope-latest-cosmic-pictures-130129.htm

Scientists are at a loss to explain how the planet, which is believed to be six- to 28 times as big as Earth, could exist. For starters, the host star is only about 8 million years old, which was believed to be too young to support planets. It also is small, about half as massive as the sun.

Computer models show that a planet 7.5 billion miles from its parent star would take 200 times longer to form than a planet positioned about where Jupiter is in our solar system. Jupiter, which took about 10 million years to form, is around 500 million miles from the sun.

PHOTOS: Hubble at 23: Horsehead Nebula in a New Light
http://news.discovery.com/space/astronomy/hubble-23-year-anniversary-horsehead-nebula-130419.htm

The baby planet was detected indirectly from a telltale gap in a 41-billion-mile wide ring of gas and dust circling TW Hydrae. The gap is believed to be due to the growing planet gravitationally sweeping up material that is then incorporated into the planet. Astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope for their survey.

The research is published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, J. Debes (STScI), H. Jang-Condell (University of Wyoming), A. Weinberger (Carnegie Institution of Washington), A. Roberge (Goddard Space Flight Center), G. Schneider (University of Arizona/Steward Observatory), and A. Feild (STScI/AURA)

(Source: http://news.discovery.com/space/alien-life-exoplanets/hubble-spies-far-out-baby-planet-130613.htm)

[Unorthodox]

You have the right to remain silent, so long as you're talking. 

http://abovethelaw.com/2013/06/introverts-and-the-fifth-amendment-or-justice-alito-on-why-you-should-go-to-law-school/

If you’ve been arrested, and the police want to interrogate you, they will tell you that you have the right to remain silent.

How do you assert that right?

One way would be to say something like “I would like to remain silent.” Saying “I want a lawyer” should also stop the questioning.

But today, in Salinas v. Texas, the Supreme Court of the United States held that you do not assert your right to remain silent by remaining silent. If you want to remain silent, you’ll need to be prepared to talk about it.

No one will be surprised that this result came from the Justice least likely to be voted most beloved by those in our nation’s prison systems, Justice Alito.

Sort of….


Genovevo Salinas talked to a police officer who was investigating a murder. The murder happened after a party that Salinas had been to. The conversation was voluntary; Salinas was simply being a good citizen.

At some point, the officer asked Salinas if the shell casings found at the scene of the murder would match a shotgun that Salinas owned.

Salinas thought, at that point, that perhaps silence is one way of being a good citizen — as the Fifth Amendment provides. When asked about the possible ballistics test, he “[l]ooked down at the floor, shuffled his feet, bit his bottom lip, cl[e]nched his hands in his lap, [and] began to tighten up.”

Salinas was charged with murder. At trial, the prosecutors told the jury that Salinas started talking, then stopped. His lawyer objected, saying that the jury was being told only that Salinas asserted his Fifth Amendment rights – and that shouldn’t be held against him.

The case went to One First Street, originally to answer the question of whether a Fifth Amendment assertion can be used against a person in a criminal trial as a part of the government’s presentation.

Though a funny thing happened on the way to that question presented – it turns out the Court decided that merely being silent is not the same thing as invoking the Fifth Amendment.

Alito wrote an opinion announcing the judgment of the Court, but joined only by the Chief and Justice Kennedy. In it, Alito wrote that a witness does not signal his intention to not talk “by simply standing mute.”

Had Salinas said, for example, in response to the question about ballistics testing, “I will not answer that question, because I have the right not to under the Fifth Amendment,” that response would have invoked the Fifth Amendment. But Salinas just sat silent.

One may wonder who would think that saying “I do not want to talk” is different than just not talking. The answer: someone who has been to law school. Maybe the best explanation for this result is that Alito is trying to generate a new set of arguments for why you should go to law school.

Alito lends some support to this theory (internal citations omitted):

At oral argument, counsel for petitioner suggested that it would be unfair to require a suspect unschooled in the particulars of legal doctrine to do anything more than remain silent in order to invoke his “right to remain silent.” But popular misconceptions notwithstanding, the Fifth Amendment guarantees that no one may be “compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself ”; it does not establish an unqualified “right to remain silent.” A witness’ constitutional right to refuse to answer questions depends on his reasons for doing so, and courts need to know those reasons to evaluate the merits of a Fifth Amendment claim.
The bottom line: we are all making a record all the time. It’s better to have a J.D.

Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Scalia, thought the easier way to resolve this case would have been to hold that the Fifth Amendment doesn’t apply to police interviews that aren’t custodial.

The Court had already rejected that view in Griffin v. California, but Thomas doesn’t like that opinion. Or stare decisis.

Happily, though, with no majority opinion, and no common ground between the plurality opinions, this case is really only going to make life hard for Genovevo Salinas himself.

He may be one of the only people in America who should have gone to law school.

[Buster's Uncle]

Ontario couple finds 400-year-old skeleton, gets $5,000 bill
The Lookout


A Canadian couple who recently stumbled upon a 400-year-old skeleton is now saddled with a $5,000 bill, the Star reports.

Two weeks ago, Ken Campbell of Sarnia, Ontario, came upon some bones while digging postholes in his backyard. His wife, Nicole Sauve, encouraged him to unearth the rest of the skeleton.

Ontario police, who cordoned off the area, called up forensic anthropologist Michael Spence to examine the site. Spence told the Star that the skeleton is likely that of a 24-year-old aboriginal woman who died in the late 1500s or early 1600s. Spence then contacted the Registrar of Cemeteries, which told Sauve that she and Campbell would have to hire an archeologist to examine the rest of the backyard—at their expense.

According to the Star, property owners are legally responsible to pay for such an assessment "if human remains are found on their land."

Stuck with a $5,000 bill, Sauve appealed to the mayor of Sarnia but has yet to get a clear answer about whether the government will pay. According to the Star, she might be able to make a request to the Registrar of Cemeteries to cover the costs.

Sauve told the Star that people have been telling her if they wind up in a similar situation, they won’t risk getting a bill by telling the authorities about their finds.

“This is awful,” said Sauve. “God forbid you have a murder victim, and you cover them up.”

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/ontario-couple-finds-400-old-skeleton-gets-5-141737421.html

There's video of the skeleton at the link...

[Unorthodox]

Yeah, saw that yesterday on the news.  Messed up law that they have to foot the bill. 

[Unorthodox]

http://www.khou.com/news/texas-news/Texas-complaints-grow-against-use-of-human-waste-as-fertilizer-211971461.html

PARKER COUNTY, Texas –– The use of human waste as fertilizer is becoming a major concern for a growing number of Texas communities. Tuesday they take their fight to Austin. On Monday, it was Parker County.

"And I have never in my life smelled anything like what we've been smelling here the last three weeks," exclaimed one man at an emergency meeting of County Commissioners.  They met outside in Springtown near treated fields.

But not too near.

"I don't know why we expect anyone to have to put up with that," said a clearly frustrated County Judge Mark Riley.

He got a snoot full from angry citizens like Julie Lambert. "So my property value, my worth, has it all gone to zero?" she asked. She said the smell chases her indoors for days at a time.

In Austin Tuesday, Judge Riley will ask the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to ban the practice in Parker County.  Residents in Ellis, Wise, Johnson and other counties also want protection for their quality of life and property values.

"I'm not aware of any incidents where it's caused environmental problems," said Tony Walker with the TCEQ.  He fought off flies while explaining that farmers want the fertilizer and have a right to use it.

"That stuff is considered similar to commercial fertilizer," he says."They can apply it anywhere."

That "stuff" is the solid material left over from treatment plants, like Village Creek in Fort Worth. It's treated in digesters for nearly a month, and stabilized with lime. But sometimes a powerful odor remains.

A company called Renda Environmental recycles the bio solids on 80 to 100 thousand acres a year in North Texas. Renda is challenging TCEQ findings of nuisance odor violations in Wise County last month. These are the first in the company's history, according to its website, despite more than 200 complaints filed.

The company says there's a three-to-five year wait for farmers wanting to get into the program because the fertilizer is so effective. Recycling also solves the problem of disposing of so many bio solids: about 120 tons a day.

 

But down-winders are growing increasingly angry.

In a similar note...

During my drive, I had to make a pit stop at Navajo Bridge.  Their facilities are "waterless composting toilets" which then gets used as fertilizer according to the sign. 

I thought "sure, just an outhouse."

To my surprise there was no odor in the desert heat.  There's some kind of fan down below...which was a bit strange...

[Unorthodox]

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/06/18/uk-city-council-member-reportedly-claims-to-have-fathered-alien-child/?test=latestnews

A city council member in a small seaside town in the UK has raised some eyebrows after expressing his beliefs in extra-terrestrial life in a recent TV documentary.

Simon Parkes claims he has had experiences with aliens since birth, and his "real mother" is a 9-foot green alien with eight fingers, the Northern Echo reports. His first memory is being lifted out of his cot by an alien.

The married father of three also claims he has sexual relations with an alien he refers to as the Cat Queen, and that he fathered a child with her.

"What will happen is that we will hold hands and I will say 'I'm ready' and then the technology I don't understand will take us up to a craft orbiting the Earth," Parkes said.

Parkes, 58, says he meets with the Cat Queen four times a year.

"My wife found out about it and was very unhappy, clearly," Parkes said. "That caused a few problems, but it is not on a human level, so I don't see it as wrong."

When he's not representing the residents of Whitby, Parkes spends his days drawing out his extra-terrestrial experiences to help him come to terms with them, the Northern Echo reports.

"There are plenty of people in my position who don't choose to come out and say it because they are terrified it will destroy their careers," Parkes said.

Click for more from The Northern Echo.



Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/06/18/uk-city-council-member-reportedly-claims-to-have-fathered-alien-child/?test=latestnews#ixzz2Wg4BlheG

[Buster's Uncle]

Jury finds no negligence in trial over man's 8-month erection
By Myles Miller | Reuters – Mon, Jun 17, 2013..


WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) - A jury on Monday cleared a doctor of negligence in a lawsuit filed by a Delaware truck driver who underwent a penile implant procedure and ended up with an erection that lasted eight months.

"We're stunned," attorney Michael Heyden said as he left the New Castle County courthouse, where his client Daniel Metzgar, 44, of Newark, Delaware, was suing urologist Thomas Desperito of Wilmington, Delaware.

In April 2010, four months after the procedure was performed, Metzgar experienced swelling and went to a hospital, where he underwent testing. Before going to the hospital, Metzgar had been unable to reach Dr. Desperito.

The doctor's lawyer argued that hospital staff who performed tests were unfamiiar with penile implants and were not properly trained to do them. Therefore, the results from the tests, including images showing swelling, did not prove negligence.

Metzgar and his attorney during the one-week trial described the frequent discomfort and daily embarrassment he experienced after the procedure - including trouble riding a motorcycle, wearing normal clothes and joining family social events.

"I could hardly dance, with an erection poking my partner," Metzgar told jurors at the start of the trial. "It's not something you want to bring out at parties and show to friends."

Metzgar's stepson Alexander King, 18, described a once close relationship that grew distant after the procedure. King felt uncomfortable having friends over and noticed his stepfather stopped showing up at school and sporting events.

"I was - I'm sorry - highly embarrassed," he testified during the trial.

The device was ultimately removed in 2010 after tubing punctured Metzgar's scrotum. He received a replacement implant from another doctor.

Metzgar had no comment on the jury verdict.

The doctor's lawyer, Colleen Shields, said, "We think the jury reached the appropriate verdict."

http://news.yahoo.com/jury-finds-no-negligence-trial-over-mans-8-200157502.html

[Unorthodox]

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/blogs/memorial-service-to-be-held-for-slain-oregon-bees-in-target-parking-lot

Memorial service to be held for slain Oregon bees in Target parking lot
Sure, 'bee funeral' may scream Portland but a memorial service being held this Sunday to remember the 50,000 pollinators killed by pesticides at an Oregon Target store is more crucial than quirky in nature.
Wed, Jun 26 2013 at 5:31 PM Related Topics:Colony Collapse Disorder, Farming & Agriculture, Insects, Pesticides
 
Photo: reader of the pack/Flickr

While massive bee die-offs are troubling no matter where they take place, I suppose that the over 50,000 victims — including 25,000 bumblebees along with honeybees and ladybugs — of last week’s grisly api-cide in a Target parking lot were lucky to have perished, during National Pollinator week no less, in the vicinity of Portland, Ore., a town that cares about all of Earth’s creatures; a town the fosters bio-diversity atop big box stores; a town that is willing to hold memorial services for slain insects.
 
Yep, a memorial service for the dearly departed Wilsonville bees — subject to what’s believed to be the largest documented bee death in the Western United States — is in the works. It will be held this coming Sunday at the Wilsonville Target where the bees were found, confirmed victims of a “super-systemic” neonicotinoid-class pesticide called Safari that's used on mealybugs, whiteflys, apids and other crop-damaging critters. A landscaping firm had applied Safari to 65 linden trees around the Target store a couple of days before the dead and dying bees were discovered (the trees have since been netted to prevent any further fatalities).
 
Sound familiar? This past April, Neonicotinoids were positively outlawed in the E.U. after being ID’d by researchers as a key contributor to colony collapse disorder (meanwhile, the EPA continues to take its sweet time in addressing this urgent issue).
 
The Wilsonville Bees Memorial itself is being organized by Portland resident Rozzell Medina.
 
He writes on the event Facebook page:
 
On Sunday June 30, 2013 at 2:00 PM, please join us at the site where an estimated 50,000 bees were killed by humans who sprayed the toxic pesticide, Safari. We will memorialize these fallen lifeforms and talk about the plight of the bees and their importance to life on Earth. If you are passionate, concerned, or curious about this situation, this will be a good opportunity to communicate with others.
 
As you may know, this is a very crucial moment for bees, as they are dying in the millions, unnaturally, worldwide. Their unnatural deaths are being caused by humans applying chemical pesticides to the earth and its plants. In addition to the injustice and brutality of this situation for the bees that are being murdered, there are far-reaching effects for humans, who rely on bees to pollinate our crops. It is widely agreed that the endangerment and extinction of bees will have devastating consequences for humans and other lifeforms, which makes this an urgent opportunity to honor them and advocate for them.
 
As of publication, a total of 54 concerned citizens will be attending the event. Those who cannot attend are encouraged to send Medina a personal eulogy which will be read at the service.
 
Although rather apropos, I’d say it would be in poor taste to arrive with flowers. Instead, the best way to honor the slain Wilsonville bees is to keep informed of issues affecting nature’s most crucial pollinators and join the ongoing fight to ban bee-killing pesticides that the EPA continues to permit.

[gwillybj]

Primeval Underwater Forest Discovered in Gulf of Mexico
By Tia Ghose, Staff Writer

A primeval underwater ocean has been unearthed just a few miles off the coast of Alabama. Here, a sonar ….Scuba divers have discovered a primeval underwater forest off the coast of Alabama.

The Bald Cypress forest was buried under ocean sediments, protected in an oxygen-free environment for more than 50,000 years, but was likely uncovered by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said Ben Raines, one of the first divers to explore the underwater forest and the executive director of the nonprofit Weeks Bay Foundation, which researches estuaries.

The forest contains trees so well-preserved that when they are cut, they still smell like fresh Cypress sap, Raines said.

The stumps of the Cypress trees span an area of at least 0.5 square miles (0.8 kilometers), several miles from the coast of Mobile, Ala., and sit about 60 feet (18 meters) below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.

Despite its discovery only recently, the underwater landscape has just a few years to be explored, before wood-burrowing marine animals destroy the ancient forest. [8 of the World's Most Endangered Places]

Closely guarded secret

Raines was talking with a friend who owned a dive shop about a year after Hurricane Katrina. The dive shop owner confided that a local fisherman had found a site teeming with fish and wildlife and suspected that something big was hidden below. The diver went down to explore and found a forest of trees, then told Raines about his stunning find.

But because scuba divers often take artifacts from shipwrecks and other sites, the dive shop owner refused to disclose the location for many years, Raines said.

In 2012, the owner finally revealed the site's location after swearing Raines to secrecy. Raines then did his own dive and discovered a primeval Cypress swamp in pristine condition. The forest had become an artificial reef, attracting fish, crustaceans, sea anemones and other underwater life burrowing between the roots of dislodged stumps. [Images: Mysterious Underwater Stone Structure]

Some of the trees were truly massive, and many logs had fallen over before being covered by ocean sediment. Raines swam the length of the logs.

"Swimming around amidst these stumps and logs, you just feel like you're in this fairy world," Raines told LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.


Primeval forest

Raines reached out to several scientists to learn more about the forest. One of those scientists was Grant Harley, a dendrochronologist (someone who studies tree rings) at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Harley was intrigued, and together with geographer Kristine DeLong of Louisiana State University, set out to discover the site's secrets.

The research team created a sonar map of the area and analyzed two samples Raines took from trees. DeLong is planning her own dive at the site later this year. Because of the forest depth, scuba divers can only stay below for about 40 minutes before coming up.

Carbon isotopes (atoms of the same element that have different molecular weights) revealed that the trees were about 52,000 years old.

The trees' growth rings could reveal secrets about the climate of the Gulf of Mexico thousands of years ago, during a period known as the Wisconsin Glacial period, when sea levels were much lower than they are today. [World's Weirdest Geological Formations]

In addition, because Bald Cypress trees can live a thousand years, and there are so many of them, the trees could contain thousands of years of climate history for the region, Harley said.

"These stumps are so big, they're upwards of two meters in diameter — the size of trucks," Harley told OurAmazingPlanet. "They probably contain thousands of growth rings."

The team, which has not yet published their results in a peer-reviewed journal, is currently applying for grants to explore the site more thoroughly.

Harley estimates they have just two years.

"The longer this wood sits on the bottom of the ocean, the more marine organisms burrow into the wood, which can create hurdles when we are trying to get radiocarbon dates," Harley said. "It can really make the sample undatable, unusable."

http://news.yahoo.com/primeval-underwater-forest-discovered-gulf-mexico-164826663.html

[gwillybj]

Is Desert Bus the worst videogame of all time?
By Rob Waugh | Plugged In – Fri, Jul 12, 2013 12:05 PM EDT


The worst game ever made?

Desert Bus is often described as the "worst game of all time" -- a driving game where you pilot a bus, in real time, for eight hours, along a perfectly straight road.

"Your task is simply to remain conscious," says TV illusionist Teller, who revealed the secrets of the game's creation in a New Yorker article this week.
There is no traffic. The game cannot be paused. Worst of all, the bus lists constantly to the right -- so players have to steer constantly.

If the bus swerves, it goes off the road, and players have to start the eight-hour drive again from the beginning. Completing the mind-numbing journey earns players one point. High scores are, understandably, thin on the ground.

[Related: Star Wars toys brought to life]

The game was created by illusionists Penn Jillette and Teller in 1995, but remained unreleased -- but is now available on iPhone and Android.

The idea is simply to be as boring as real life, Teller said, to show politicians what a "realistic" game would be like.

“Every few years, video games are blamed in the media for all of the ills in society - in the early Nineties, I wrote an article for the New York Times citing all the studies that show video games have no effect on a child’s morals," Teller says. "But we wanted to create some entertainment that helped make the point.”

"The route between Las Vegas and Phoenix is long. It's a boring job that just goes on and on repetitiously, and your task is simply to remain conscious. That was one of the big keys - we would make no cheats about time, so people like the Attorney General could get a good idea of how valuable and worthwhile a game that just reflects reality would be."

An annual marathon of the game, Desert Bus for Hope, raises money for the Child's Play charity. Desert Bus for Hope are behind the current smartphone version.

"One man. One Bus. Three hundred and sixty miles of simulated post-apocalyptic desert, and the endless struggle between man and nature personified," the game's description says. "Desert Bus. The most realistic verisimilitude reality game ever created by man or beast or man-beast is here at last."

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/desert-bus-worst-videogame-time-160542705.html

[gwillybj]

Astronomy News


Gas cloud swings around galactic center black hole

Observations of the heart of our Milky Way have revealed that parts of the infalling gas cloud have already swung past the black hole at our galactic center.

By Max Planck Institute, Garching, Germany — Published: July 17, 2013


Series of infrared images showing the central region of our Milky Way Galaxy. The gas cloud (indicated by an arrow) is unambiguously detected up to 2012. In the latest images, however, its surface brightness is too low for a firm detection. // MPE Recent observations from April of the galactic center have revealed that parts of the infalling gas cloud, which was detected in 2011, have already swung past the black hole at the heart of our Milky Way. Due to the tidal force of the gravity monster, the gas cloud has become further stretched, with its front moving now already 300 miles (500 kilometers) per second faster than its tail. This confirms earlier predictions that its orbital motion brings it close to the black hole, and that it will not survive the encounter. With the new detailed observations, the astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching, Germany, can now also place new constraints on the origins of the gas cloud, making it increasingly unlikely that it contains a faint star inside from which the cloud might have formed.

In 2011, MPE astronomers detected a gas cloud that is falling toward the black hole at the center of our Milky Way on a near radial orbit. New sensitive data taken in April 2013 with the SINFONI instrument at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope have now shown that part of the cloud has already passed its closest approach to the black hole. As the gas swings by the black hole, it reverses its velocity. The emission from this part of the cloud appears not redshifted as does the radiation from the rest of the cloud, but rather blueshifted.

“The ionized gas at the head of the cloud is now stretched over more than 150 light-hours (about 160 billion kilometers [99 billion miles]) at the pericenter of the orbit around the black hole, with the closest approach being about 25 light-hours (or a bit more than 25 billion km [16 billion miles]),” said Stefan Gillessen from MPE, who led the observing team. “The pericenter approach, however, is not a singular event but rather a process that will be stretching over a period of at least one year.”

Previous estimates of the gas cloud orbit had predicted the nominal pericenter passage for later in the year, while the new analysis prefers a date early in 2014 — a difference that is less than the duration of the event. In addition to the new observations, the team also reanalyzed archival data and can now give a better measurement of the cloud’s orbit. The fastest components appear to move with a red-shifted velocity of 1,900 miles (3,000km) per second), while the brightest part of the head moves with about 1,400 miles (2,180km) per second. Further down the orbit, there seems to follow a tail moving much slower with a velocity of only 400 miles (700km) per second but along the same orbit.

“But the most exciting detection is gas emission with a blueshifted velocity of 3,000 km/s along the orbit at a position after pericenter,” said Gillessen. “This means that part of the cloud has already passed the closest approach to the black hole. This could also affect our models of the gas cloud orbit as the brightest part of the head structure might not be comparable any longer to the head in 2012.” Measurements of the radial velocity seem to confirm this suspicion. The increase in velocity seems to be less than expected because the fastest particles have already moved to the other side of the black hole and thus no longer contribute to the velocity of the still redshifted part.

In addition, the new data shed light on the enigmatic origin of the gas cloud. Several options have been proposed, ranging from recent formation due to a collision between stellar winds and the interstellar medium or the possible jet emerging from the galactic center to a faint star that loses increasing amounts of gas. While the compactness of the gas cloud seems surprising for any of these scenarios, the shape of the tidal shear argues against models with a stellar core that would constantly supply new gas. Instead, the orientation of the orbit continues to favor an origin connected to the disk of young massive stars surrounding the black hole farther out.

Numerous observing campaigns have been set up to intensely monitor the region around the galactic center in 2013. This should provide the astronomers with a wealth of data, further constraining the parameters of the gas cloud but also giving interesting information about the surroundings of the black hole. The growing extension and the correspondingly decreasing surface brightness of the gas, however, will make such a detection difficult. The gas cloud is fading as it passes around the black hole.

http://www.astronomy.com/en/News-Observing/News/2013/07/Gas%20cloud%20swings%20around%20galactic%20center%20black%20hole.aspx

[Buster's Uncle]

Odd Craving Causes Woman's Serious Heart Problem
LiveScience.com
By Catherine Winters, Contributing writer  4 hours ago

 
A woman who devoured a 1-pound box of baking soda a day — before and during her pregnancy — developed serious muscle and heart conditions, according to a report of her case.

But it took doctors a week from the time she was hospitalized to pinpoint the cause of her life-threatening illnesses: the mysterious condition known as pica.

The condition involves cravings for nonfood items such as cornstarch, clay, baking powder, dirt or ice, and is common during pregnancy.

The 35-year-old mother-to-be, who showed up at the hospital complaining of weakness and dizziness during her 37th week of pregnancy, was initially diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat and muscle weakness in her legs. She also had low levels of potassium, an electrolyte vital for the proper functioning of nerve and muscle cells, especially the heart muscle.

"The low potassium levels explained why she was weak" and her irregular heartbeat, said Dr. Thomas Myles, co-author of the report and a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and women's health at St. Louis University in Missouri.

But the next question that doctors needed to answer was why her potassium levels were low.

"I had seen a patient who was weak from overdoing caffeine, so I thought about diet," Myles said. He said he is also familiar with pica and its symptoms, but the patient didn’t admit to any unusual dietary practices.

Doctors admitted the woman to the hospital, and when she developed a rapid heart rate, they transferred her to the intensive care unit, treating her with fluids and electrolytes.

Then lab tests found high blood levels of creatine kinase, an enzyme that signals a condition called rhabdomyolysis, a breakdown of muscle fiber that can harm the kidneys.

When an echocardiogram showed that the left ventricle of the woman's heart was dilated, doctors suspected the woman also had a condition called peripartum cardiomyopathy. This condition occurs when the heart muscle weakens, and is unable to pump blood efficiently.  It affects one in every 1,300 to 5,000 births, and is usually diagnosed during the last month of pregnancy, or within five months of delivery, according to the National Institutes of Health.

After doctors treated the woman with heart medication and a blood transfusion, they induced labor. On her fifth day in the hospital, she delivered a healthy 5-pound, 4-ounce baby boy.

Further treatment improved her creatine kinase levels, but her potassium levels stayed stubbornly low.

During her hospital stay, the doctors and nursing staff kept questioning the woman about her dietary and other habits. Finally, two days after giving birth, she admitted she had been downing baking soda daily for several years, as a remedy for hiccups. She had even consumed some while in the hospital.

"I suspect she felt a little guilty that her symptoms were self-induced," Myles said.

She was told to stop eating the baking soda, and was closely watched to make sure she complied. Within a day, her potassium levels returned to normal and she was discharged.

At that point, the woman began to see a cardiologist, and three months later, an echocardiogram showed she still had mild cardiomyopathy, Myles said.

However, the muscle weakness in her legs had resolved. "As soon as you get away from the offending trigger and stay hydrated, muscle becomes stable and rebuilds," Myles said.

The baking soda, which is mainly sodium bicarbonate, triggered a cascade of metabolic abnormalities that led to her condition.  Once the woman stopped her baking soda habit, "it made it a lot easier to treat her," Myles said.

The case report is published in the August issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.

http://news.yahoo.com/odd-craving-causes-womans-serious-heart-problem-121930870.html

[Unorthodox]

I can't help but harken back to my son's science fair project last year where he was mummifying all sorts of things with baking soda...

[Buster's Uncle]

Can't that be done with just salt - and wouldn't the salt be cheaper?

[Unorthodox]

Baking soda is quicker.  Cost is about the same/lb.