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bananas's JournalDad's Life Stress Exposure Leaves Mark On Sperm, Can Affect Offspring Brain Development
Source: Science Daily
Sperm doesn't appear to forget anything. Stress felt by dad -- whether as a preadolescent or adult -- leaves a lasting impression on his sperm that gives sons and daughters a blunted reaction to stress, a response linked to several mental disorders. The findings, published in a new preclinical study in the Journal of Neuroscience by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, point to a never-before-seen epigenetic link to stress-related diseases such as anxiety and depression passed from father to child.
While environmental challenges, like diet, drug abuse, and chronic stress, felt by mothers during pregnancy have been shown to affect offspring neurodevelopment and increase the risk for certain diseases, dad's influence on his children are less well understood. The effects of lifelong exposures to dad on children are even more out of reach.
Now, a team of researchers led by Tracy L. Bale, PhD, associate professor of neuroscience in the Perelman School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and the School of Veterinary Medicine Department of Animal Biology, have shown that stress on preadolescent and adult male mice induced an epigenetic mark in their sperm that reprogrammed their offspring's hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, a region of the brain that governs responses to stress. Surprisingly, both male and female offspring had abnormally low reactivity to stress.
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"It didn't matter if dads were going through puberty or in adulthood when stressed before they mated. We've shown here for the first time that stress can produce long-term changes to sperm that reprogram the offspring HPA stress axis regulation," said Bale. "These findings suggest one way in which paternal-stress exposure may be linked to such neuropsychiatric diseases."
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Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130612132656.htm
Scan Predicts Whether Therapy or Meds Will Best Lift Depression
Source: Science Daily
Pre-treatment scans of brain activity predicted whether depressed patients would best achieve remission with an antidepressant medication or psychotherapy, in a study funded by the National Institutes of Health.
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Activity in one specific brain area emerged as a pivotal predictor of outcomes from two standard forms of depression treatment: cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) or escitalopram, a serotonin specific reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant. If a patient's pre-treatment resting brain activity was low in the front part of an area called the insula, on the right side of the brain, it signaled a significantly higher likelihood of remission with CBT and a poor response to escitalopram. Conversely, hyperactivity in the insula predicted remission with escitalopram and a poor response to CBT.
Among several sites of brain activity related to outcome, activity in the anterior insula best predicted response and non-response to both treatments. The anterior insula is known to be important in regulating emotional states, self-awareness, decision-making and other thinking tasks. Changes in insula activity have been observed in studies of various depression treatments, including medication, mindfulness training, vagal nerve stimulation and deep brain stimulation.
"If these findings are confirmed in follow-up replication studies, scans of anterior insula activity could become clinically useful to guide more effective initial treatment decisions, offering a first step towards personalized medicine measures in the treatment of major depression" said Mayberg.
Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130612162358.htm
80-year old nuclear engineer opposes nuclear power now
"I had been opposed to the restart of San Onofre for technical reasons, but I can tell you that for the rest of my life, I don't know how many years that will be, I will be -- I am -- completely opposed to nuclear power.... Thank you, thank you, thank you."
Video by Ace Hoffman
http://www.acehoffman.org
TVA cuts 530 jobs, spending on Ala. nuclear plant
Source: Associated Press
The Tennessee Valley Authority will cut 530 jobs and trim millions of dollars in spending on its effort to revive a mothballed nuclear plant in Alabama, utility officials said Wednesday in a decision that calls into question the project's future.
A total of 35 TVA employees and 495 contractors will lose their positions at the Bellefonte Nuclear Power Station northeast of Scottsboro, Ala. The budget will fall from $182 million to $66 million, a reduction of roughly 64 percent. Some of the affected TVA employees may be reassigned to other roles within the utility.
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So far, the utility has not formally abandoned the Bellefonte project. However, Skaggs said TVA officials are in the process of determining how the plant fits into the utility's overall needs. Workers will continue performing maintenance at the site, protect the plant's records and keep working on an estimate outlining how much it would cost to finish one of the site's two reactors.
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TVA officials decided to defer the construction of one of Bellefonte's reactors in 1985 and put off the construction of a second reactor three years later. During the mid-1990s, the utility debated converting the facility into a fossil fuel plant or use it to produce tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen needed in nuclear weapons.
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Read more: http://www.ajc.com/ap/ap/georgia/tva-cuts-400-jobs-spending-on-ala-nuclear-plant/nYJpr/
Canada’s Harper govt increases nuclear operators’ liability to just $1 billion
Nuclear power plants to be on the hook for $1-billion in event of meltdown
GLORIA GALLOWAY
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Jun. 10 2013, 11:37 AM EDT
Last updated Monday, Jun. 10 2013, 8:07 PM EDT
109 comments
The Harper government says Canada’s nuclear operators should not have to pay more than a billion dollars in total compensation in the event of a catastrophic incident at one of their reactors.
Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said Monday he will introduce legislation in the fall to increase the liability limit from the current $75-million – an amount set four decades ago and one that is widely recognized to be grossly inadequate.
One billion dollars is actually $350-million more than the government proposed in its four previous attempts to lift the cap that didn’t make it through Parliament. And it would bring Canada in line with many of the other leading nuclear nations.
But, as the cleanup continues at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan more than two years after an earthquake and tsunami caused equipment failures and meltdowns, critics question why there should be a cap at all. Estimates of the money needed to address the problems at the Japanese facility vary widely but the Tokyo Electric Power Company said last fall it could be $125-billion.
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Via http://nuclear-news.net/2013/06/12/canadas-harper-govt-increases-nuclear-operators-liability-to-just-1-billion/
Nuclear advocacy lands Abe in hot water with wife
Source: Japan Times
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may be pushing to sell Japan’s atomic plants abroad, but his wife, Akie, doesn’t seem to be on the same page, saying her “heart aches” to see him being pronuclear.
“I’m opposed to nuclear power,” she said in a June 6 speech in Tokyo. “My heart aches to see him selling nuclear power overseas.”
Her comment came a day before her husband and French President Francois Hollande agreed to cooperate on developing and exporting nuclear power technologies.
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An ex-radio DJ, Akie Abe said she will say out loud what her hubby may not want to hear. “I’m the opposition party at home. But I try to say it euphemistically so as not to hurt him.”
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Read more: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/06/12/national/nuclear-advocacy-lands-abe-in-hot-water-with-wife/
China's latest 'sacred' manned space mission blasts off
Source: Reuters
A Chinese manned spacecraft blasted off with three astronauts on board on Tuesday on a 15-day mission to an experimental space lab in the latest step towards the development of a space station.
The Shenzhou 10 spacecraft was launched from a remote site in the Gobi desert in China's far west at 5:38 p.m. (0938 GMT) under warm, clear blue skies, in images carried live on state television.
Once in orbit, the craft will dock with the Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) 1, a trial space laboratory module, and the two male and one female astronauts will carry out various experiments and test the module's systems.
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President Xi Jinping oversaw Tuesday's launch personally, addressing the astronauts before they blasted off to wish them success, saying he was "enormously happy" to be there.
"You are the pride of the Chinese people, and this mission is both glorious and sacred," Xi said, according to state media.
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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/11/us-china-space-idUSBRE95205220130611
The real reason they're closing San Onofre?
The real reason they're closing SanO???
6/7/2013
Dear Readers,
The letter shown below, from Pete Dietrich this morning to SanO employees, suggests that the real reason SCE is closing San Onofre Nuclear Waste Generating Station is because of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board's involvement in the case. The ASLB would not be looking into the problems at San Onofre Nuclear Waste Generating Station if Friends of the Earth (FOE) hadn't pushed the issue with carefully-planned legal actions.
FOE deserves enormous credit for their role in this event. Southern California narrowly avoided its own Fukushima on January 12th, 2012. Eight tubes in Unit three were worn enough to fail pressure tests, and one tube in Unit two was 90% worn. Unexpected vibration had done them in.
But with bullheaded determination, SCE tried to restart anyway. The 70% plan has been lingering around since nearly the beginning of the outage. Some restart plan, any restart plan. But first, FOE hired Arnie Gundersen to look into the matter, who is a world-renowned expert in steam generator technology, and then they hired a slew of other experts to confirm his findings. Independent experts, independent, that is, of SCE, NRC, and FOE also confirmed that SanO's u-tubes were beyond repair. But Arnie did the hard discovery work first. Then he explained it again and again, to activists, reporters, and regulators.
Arnie Gundersen is a hero to science and reason.
Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA
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FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY
To: SONGS Employees and Supplemental Workers
It is with a heavy heart that I share with you SCE's decision to permanently retire both Units 2 and 3. I recognize this difficult announcement is something none of us wanted to hear, but our decision is absolutely the right thing to do. The tough reality is that the recent Atomic Safety and Licensing Board decision creates significant additional uncertainty regarding our ability to get to an NRC decision to restart Unit 2 this year.
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Japan seeks to develop its offensive capability
Source: China Network Television (CNTV)
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party is compiling a new set of defense guidelines that would allow the country’s armed forces to develop an offensive capability.
The guidelines will grant the country’s defense forces with the right to launch strikes at the missile bases of a potential enemy. A research committee headed by the vice minister of the Ministry of Defense Akinori Eto will hold a discussion on this proposal.
Eto is expected to visit the United States in July, in a bid to hold talks over Japan’s new national defense program guidelines and on the revision of US-Japan defense cooperation.
Read more: http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20130611/100477.shtml
Mysterious Meteor Shower Might Peak Early Tomorrow
Source: Space.com
If your skies are clear early tomorrow (June 11) morning, it might be worth your while to step outside and look for shooting stars.
For a short time, maybe an hour (quite possibly less than that), stargazers might be treated to a brief flurry of meteor activity — or nothing at all. The uncertainty surrounding tomorrow's meteor shower is part of a mystery that goes back more than 80 years.
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Peter Jenniskens of NASA, in his study of outbursts from long-period comets, has proposed that the 1930 event was real and may be repeated tomorrow morning.
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Report your meteor sightings
The expected time of the meteor outburst is 4:28 a.m. EDT (0828 GMT), 3:28 a.m. CDT, 2:28 a.m. MDT, and 1:28 a.m. PDT. This timing is favorable for all the Americas, extending west to the Hawaiian Islands.
If you live in the Eastern Time Zone, you should start watching around 3:30 a.m. and continue on up until the predicted peak at 4:28 a.m. Thereafter the sky will be getting much too bright thanks to the dawn twilight and approaching sunrise.
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Read more: http://www.space.com/21510-delphinids-meteor-shower-tomorrow.html
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