Monday, November 28, 2011

Skyrim fans release all in-game books for Kindle, Nook and iOS (Digital Trends)

skyrim

Ever since Bethesda Softworks released?Skyrim on November 11, the folks over at Capane have been collecting the in-game books that are available to read within Skyrim and converting them into formats that can be downloaded onto e-readers and tablets. Within the files for the game, the books are all in plain text rather than encoded files. The people at Capane saved each book into a?separate document, added headings as well as a table of contents. These files were saved in both?.epub and MOBI formats. The?.epub files are used within the Nook as well as the iPad and the MOBI format is used within the Amazon Kindle. Capane has made these files available to download for anyone that?s legally?purchased?a copy of the game.

barnes-and-noble-nook-tablet-frontIn order to supplement the game, Skyrim fans over at GameBanshee have released a complete, annotated map of Skyrim available to download for free. Anyone seeking help finding a location in Skyrim can reference the high-resolution PNG version of the map or download the 9-page PDF version of the map to print out a poster-sized version of the map for printing. The map is broken into 96 grid squares which can be combined with the key on the Web version to quickly find a specific location via the alphebetical listings of the various landmarks, shipwrecks, villages, ruins, caves, farms, stables, statues and major cities around Skyrim.?

YouTube users have been flooding the social video site with tons of Skyrim videos from methods to exploit shop owners through theft by slipping a bucket over the head of the NPC to videos about the various ways to die within Skyrim. A popular video posted by YouTube user HunterNormandy details 100 ways to die within the Skyrim universe and has racked up over 250,000 views in the past ten days.

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20111126/tc_digitaltrends/skyrimfansreleaseallingamebooksforkindlenookandios

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Sunday, November 27, 2011

Chrome to gain plug and play gamepad support and WebRTC video chat in 2012

Seems like Big G updates its browser of choice with fresh features every time we turn around, and one of Google's own, dev advocate Paul Kinlan, revealed that another spate of upgrades are arriving for Chrome early next year. The headliner is plug-and-play support for gamepads, but native support for cameras, microphones and open-source video chat framework WebRTC are on the docket too -- features that give Chrome some considerable gaming chops when combined with its existing WebGL and HTML 5 prowess and, he says, could bring OnLive to the web without plugins. If you thought Angry Birds on a browser was a great, we can't wait to see what's in store when a proper controller and integrated video chat are involved.

Chrome to gain plug and play gamepad support and WebRTC video chat in 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Nov 2011 14:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/25/chrome-to-gain-plug-and-play-gamepad-support-and-webrtc-video-ch/

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Saturday, November 26, 2011

Researchers surprised to find fatty liver disease poses no excess risk for death

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a common condition associated with obesity and heart disease long thought to undermine health and longevity. But a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests the condition does not affect survival.

A report on the study was published online last week in BMJ, the British medical journal.

"Physicians have considered fatty liver disease a really worrisome risk factor for cardiovascular disease," says study leader Mariana Lazo, M.D., Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research. "Our data analysis shows this doesn't appear to be the case. We were surprised to say the least because we expected to learn by how much non-alcoholic fatty liver disease increased the risk of death and instead found the answer was not at all."

Using health information collected from 11,371 Americans between 1994 and 1998 and followed for up to 18 years as part of the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III), the researchers checked liver enzyme levels and ultrasound tests for evidence of NAFLD, and ultimately looked at death rates associated with NAFLD. The participants ranged in age from 20 to 74 during the data collection years. Because the ultrasounds were originally taken to assess gallbladder health, Lazo and colleagues from Johns Hopkins looked at each recording to determine the presence of fat in each person's liver. People whose livers are 5 percent fat or more are considered to have NAFLD.

The Johns Hopkins team found no increase in mortality among those with NAFLD, which was identified in approximately 20 percent of the NHANES participants. At the end of the follow-up period, mortality from all causes was 22 percent, or 1,836 individuals. Cardiovascular disease was the cause of death for 716 participants, cancer for 480 and liver disease for 44.

Although the researchers found no increase in deaths, Lazo says further study is needed to determine whether more advanced NAFLD has serious long-term consequences for the liver, a vital organ that turns what we eat and drink into nutrients and filters harmful substances from the blood.

NAFLD, which some researchers have called the nation's next epidemic, is characterized by the liver's inability to break down fats and fatty build up in the organ. Found in roughly one in three Americans, it is most prevalent in those who are obese, and those with diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The spectrum of disease ranges from simple fat build-up to inflammation to the scarring and poor liver function that characterize cirrhosis. Chronic liver disease has long been associated with long-term alcohol consumption, but as the name suggests, NAFLD is found in those who are not heavy drinkers.

"We don't yet know why mortality is not affected or whether there might be some actual protective effect of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease," she says, "but it looks like the liver's ability to accumulate fat may somehow shield the body from the detrimental effects of other health problems such as obesity and diabetes," she says.

There is no treatment for NAFLD, other than lifestyle changes, including weight loss, and only a liver biopsy can determine how serious NAFLD is. Lazo says she hopes new methods are developed that more easily identify more advanced stages of NAFLD, which may not be harmless.

Still, she says, her research suggests that with respect to long-term survival of people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, "it may not matter if you have the disease or not."

###

Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org

Thanks to Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115458/Researchers_surprised_to_find_fatty_liver_disease_poses_no_excess_risk_for_death

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Face-to-face with the super-efficient silkworm

Chelsea Whyte, contributor

Bmori2_2011_OSG.jpg(Image: 2011 OSG)

Spin, spin, spin, little silkworm. These chubby grubs take in thousands of times their weight in plants - mulberry leaves are a favourite meal - and churn out strands of fine silk that feed a billion-dollar industry.

They are only a few centimetres long, but silkworms can produce a thread of silk up to 900 metres long for their cocoons. In this picture, the silk worm is lit from below with blue and red lights to show off the thread of silk it is spinning.

"Silk produced by spiders and silk moths demonstrates combinations of strength and toughness that still outperform their synthetic counterparts," says Chris Holland of the University of Oxford.

Not only do silkworms produce stronger fibres than synthetic methods, they do it more efficiently. The Bombyx mori is a Chinese silkworm that produces its fine strands at room temperature with only water as a by-product. In contrast, human production of oil-based fibres requires high-temperature manufacturing and creates harmful waste.

pic2Bmori_Cocoon_2011_OSG.jpg(Image: 2011 OSG)

Silk experts at the University of Oxford worked with researchers at the University of Sheffield to compare the energy used in the formation of natural versus synthetic fibres, which they hope will allow them to find short cuts to smoother silk production.

"This is about being inspired by nature," says Oleksandr Mykhaylyk of the University of Oxford. The researchers say that spinning fibres the way silkworms do could reduce the costs of fibre manufacturing by 90 per cent.

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Friday, November 25, 2011

Officials say plan on al Qaeda detainees would harm probes (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? A Senate plan requiring that all foreign al Qaeda suspects found in the United States be turned over to the military instead of civilian law enforcement could gravely damage U.S. counter-terrorism investigations, the Obama administration warned.

Top administration officials charged that the plan would set up new hurdles for U.S. investigators - particularly at the FBI and the Justice Department - and would raise questions as to how and when they must involve the military.

Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a rare display of bipartisanship, approved the provision earlier this month as part of an important defense bill. It could be voted on by the full Senate early next week.

Officials said that if the current plan is approved by both the House and Senate, Obama aides will recommend a presidential veto of the entire defense bill, which contains many other vital defense-related provisions.

"Agents and prosecutors should not have to spend their time worrying about citizenship status and whether and how to get a waiver signed by the Secretary of Defense in order to thwart an al Qaeda plot against the homeland," Lisa Monaco, assistant attorney general for national security, told Reuters.

"Rather than provide new tools and flexibility for FBI operators and our intelligence professionals, this legislation creates new procedures and paperwork for FBI agents, intelligence lawyers and counter-terrorism prosecutors," she said.

Currently, suspects detained in the United States normally go into the civilian justice system, while those caught overseas are held under U.S. military jurisdiction.

The dispute appears to be about more than just bureaucratic turf battles, and risks reopening bitter disputes over handling militant suspects that in some cases have taken a decade to resolve.

NO 'MIRANDA' REQUIRED

One prominent Republican backer of the plan, Senator Lindsay Graham, said that in his view, the Obama administration has been too eager to process al Qaeda suspects caught in the United States through the civilian criminal justice system.

This usually involves them quickly being given the mandatory "Miranda" warnings about their rights to legal counsel and to remain silent, he said.

Requiring that the administration transfer foreign al Qaeda suspects into military custody, Graham said in an interview on Wednesday, would give investigators time to interrogate suspects and gather intelligence about potential plots without giving them warnings which might cause them to stop talking.

"Military custody is the best place for intelligence gathering," Graham said, adding that Congress was "fed up" with administration moves to "civilianize" what some legislators still regard principally as a war against militants.

A congressional aide close to backers of the committee plan insisted that it gives the administration the freedom to make a determination on military custody.

"If the FBI is investigating, they investigate. No ongoing surveillance, intelligence gathering or interrogation is interrupted" under the bill's provisions, the aide insisted.

Under the plan, unanimously approved by the committee, military custody requirements would apply both to suspects detained by U.S. forces overseas, and to suspects alleged to be connected to al Qaeda or an "associated force" of foreign nationality who are detained on U.S. soil.

Al Qaeda suspects of U.S. nationality or residency arrested in the United States. would still be processed through the civilian court system.

After complaints from the White House, the Armed Services Committee tweaked its proposal to include a provision authorizing the administration to formally waive the military custody provisions in cases where it deems that national security would benefit from such a move.

As an example of how military handling of detainees is not an intelligence-producing panacea, law enforcement officials cited the case of an alleged al Qaeda "sleeper agent" of Saudi and Qatari nationality who was picked up in the United States after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

According to the officials, Ali al-Marri was initially arrested as a material witness, then charged in civilian courts with credit card and identity fraud violations. But in 2003, President George W. Bush designated al-Marri as an "enemy combatant" and had him transferred to a military brig in South Carolina.

Instead of being treated harshly, U.S. officials said, al Marri was given a suite of cells at the military prison, complete with his own Islamic library and exercise equipment. Despite repeated questioning by military interrogators over several years, the officials said, al Marri never provided them with any information.

However, the officials said, after President Obama in 2009 ordered that al Marri's case be reviewed, he was subsequently transferred back into the civilian court system.

He eventually pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in which he admitted dealings with alleged top al Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his involvement in alleged research into chemical weapons on al Qaeda's behalf. However, he did not give prosecutors or civilian investigators additional information.

(Editing by Warren Strobel and Jackie Frank)

(This article has been modified to correct to say al Marri did not give investigators more information in the last paragraph)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/terrorism/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111123/ts_nm/us_usa_detainees_fbi

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Thursday, November 24, 2011

"Disastrous" bond sale shakes confidence in Germany (Reuters)

BERLIN (Reuters) ? A "disastrous" German bond sale Wednesday sparked fears that Europe's debt crisis was starting to threaten even Berlin, with the leaders of the euro zone's two biggest economies still at odds over a longer-term structural solution.

With contagion spreading, a majority of 20 prominent economists polled by Reuters predicted that the euro zone was unlikely to survive the crisis in its current form, with some envisaging a "core" group that would exclude Greece.

Investors were also unnerved by reports that Belgium is leaning on France to pay more into emergency support for failed lender Dexia under a 90-billion-euro ($120-billion) rescue deal that had appeared done and dusted.

A special report by Fitch Ratings suggested France had limited room left to absorb shocks to its finances, such as a new downturn in growth or support for banks, without endangering its triple-A credit status.

"The debt crisis is burrowing ever deeper, like a worm, and is now reaching Germany," one of the more eurosceptic backbenchers in Angela Merkel's center-right government, Frank Schaeffler of the junior coalition partner Free Democrats (FDP), told Reuters.

Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and new Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti were to meet in the French city of Strasbourg Thursday.

They were expected to discuss the reforms planned by former EU commissioner Monti at a meeting they hope will allow Italy to put behind it the era of scandal-plagued former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who resigned this month.

Underlining how deep the euro zone crisis has become, the German debt agency could not find buyers for almost half a bond sale of 6 billion euros. That pushed the cost of borrowing over 10 years for the bloc's paymaster above those for the United States for the first time since October.

"It is a complete and utter disaster," said Marc Ostwald, strategist at Monument Securities in London.

The new bond promised to pay out a 2.0 percent interest rate - the lowest ever on an issue of German 10-year Bunds. The auction's average yield was 1.98 percent, down from 2.09 percent for the previous benchmark in October.

The poor debt sale by Europe's powerhouse economy pushed the euro down to 1.336 against the dollar and European shares sank to 7-week lows.

Bunds slumped after the auction. Ten-year yields rose 14.5 basis points to 2.056 percent, yielding more than U.S. Treasury notes for the first time since early last month.

GERMAN EXPOSURE

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble's spokesman told a news conference that the auction did not mean the government had refinancing problems and few on financial markets disagreed.

But it was a sign that, as the bloc's paymaster, Germany may slowly be pressured if the crisis continues to deepen. One senior ratings agency official said it could give Berlin cause to re-examine its refusal to embrace a broader solution.

"It's quite telling that there has been upward pressure on yields in Germany - it might begin to change perceptions," David Beers of Standard & Poor's told a conference in Dublin.

The borrowing costs of almost all euro zone states, even those previously seen as safe such as France, Austria and the Netherlands, spiked in the last two weeks as panicky investors dumped paper no longer seen as risk-free.

"Bunds are starting to lose their appeal because markets have to believe the euro bonds story and Germany is very close to starting, essentially, to guarantee the debt of other countries," said Achilleas Georgolopoulos, strategist at Lloyds Bank in London.

The crux of an acceleration of the crisis in the past month is Italian bond yields' jump to levels around 7 percent widely seen as unbearable in the long term, despite intervention by the European Central Bank to buy limited quantities.

Determined not to be pushed around by financial markets, Merkel is resisting calls, most notably from France, to allow the ECB to act more decisively.

In a forceful speech to the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, Merkel warned against fiddling with the bank's strict inflation-fighting mandate. She also hit back at proposals from the European Commission on joint euro zone bond issuance, calling them "extraordinarily inappropriate."

Shortly before she began speaking, French Finance Minister Francois Baroin told a conference in Paris that it was the ECB's responsibility to sustain activity in the currency bloc.

"The best response to avoid contagion in countries like Spain and Italy is, from the French viewpoint, an intervention (or) the possibility of intervention or announcement of intervention by a lender of last resort, which would be the European Central Bank," Baroin said.

STABILITY BOND

Merkel has said the EU treaty bars the ECB from acting as a lender of last resort and printing money to buy government debt. She rejected joint "euro bonds," dismissed a proposal to mutualise the euro zone's debt stock, and rebuffed attempts to allow the bloc's rescue fund to borrow from the ECB or the IMF.

Yet at the same time, she has declared that the only answer to the crisis was "more Europe" and won endorsement from her party to press for a fully fledged European political union based around the euro zone.

In a Reuters poll conducted over the last 10 days, 14 out of 20 prominent academics, former policymakers and independent thinkers agreed the euro zone's make-up would change.

A new "core" euro zone with fewer members received qualified backing from 10 economists as a possible solution, with seven of them saying Greece should be excluded from it.

"The euro zone can and should survive, but it will not survive on the current trajectory," said Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York.

The very public jousting over what to do next underscores just how divided European leaders are on how to resolve the turmoil which has accelerated to engulf big countries such as Italy and Spain, and pushed out leaders in Rome and Athens.

"We don't know where this is going," said Richard Jeffrey, Chief Investment Officer at Cazenove Capital Management in London. "Do not think the political leaders know where they are taking it."

With time running out for politicians to forge a crisis plan that is seen as credible by the markets, the European Commission presented a study Wednesday of joint euro zone bonds as a way to stabilize debt markets.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso unveiled proposals for much more intrusive oversight of euro zone countries' budgets and efforts to meet macroeconomic targets, and set out the options for introducing common euro zone bonds.

"I welcome Barroso's proposals, which are a real step forward on many points," Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees De Jager said in a statement. "It will, however, still be an uphill battle, for there are those who resist further discipline.

"Eurobonds are not a magic solution to the current crisis and could even worsen it," he said. "We have to do first things first, and that means establishing strict supervision and enforcement of budget discipline."

(Reporting by Stephen Brown, Noah Barkin, Natalia Drozdiak, Veronica Ek, Eva Kuehnen; Writing by Patrick Graham and Peter Millership; Editing by Myra MacDonald)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111124/bs_nm/us_eurozone

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Peter Thiel To The New Yorker: ?I Don?t Consider [The iPhone] To Be A Technological Breakthrough

Peter Thiel New Yorker spreadPeter Thiel is a grump, but a special kind of grump. He is a dystopian utopian (if such a person can exist). The investor who wrote the first check for Facebook both believes in the power of technology to transform our lives, and is?perennially disappointed by it. A lengthy profile in the November 28, 2011 edition of the New Yorker (summary here) states: "his main lament is that?America?the country that invented the?modern assembly line, the skyscraper,?the airplane, and the personal computer?has lost its belief in the future." It is an argument he's made before. Last September, at Disrupt SF he made the case that innovation is dead across most of the economy (you can watch the video of the session below). But what about the iPhone? ?"I don't consider this to be a technological breakthrough," he tells the New Yorker. Technology simply isn't creating enough jobs or moving the needle in areas like transportation, health, or energy.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/l91vKmiVNNo/

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Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Gingerbread update for LG Optimus 3D now rolling out

Android Central

Rejoice, LG Optimus 3D owners, for your handset's long journey to Gingerbread is finally over. The European version of phone, which launched in August with Froyo, today received an update to version 21a, based on Android 2.3.5. As well as the usual goodies you'd expect from Gingerbread, you'll also get 21Mbps HSPA+ support, a 2D and 3D video editor, improved video quality and faster Gallery app performance, just as we reported earlier this month.

The V21a update is currently available in the UK and most of mainland Europe via the LG updater utility, and should be rolling out over the air shortly. We haven't heard any reports of the update arriving on the LG Thrill 4G, the Optimus 3D's American cousin, but hopefully Thrill owners should be on a fast track to receive the new software, now that it's out internationally.

Now, about that ICS update...



Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/J_bjjJSC2_k/story01.htm

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Chinese strip down for Ai Weiwei amid porn investigation (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) ? First it was money folded into paper planes that were flown over the walls of dissident artist Ai Weiwei's home. Now Chinese Internet users' latest show of solidarity with Ai has taken the unlikeliest form of protest: mass nudity.

By Monday afternoon, seventy people had posted nude photos of themselves on a website called "Ai Wei Fans' Nudity -- Listen, Chinese Government: Nudity is not Pornography" -- a rare form of protest in a country where public nudity is still taboo.

They uploaded the photos after Beijing police questioned Ai's videographer on Thursday for allegedly spreading pornography online by taking nude photographs of Ai and four women.

Supporters of Ai, whose 81-day secret detention earlier this year sparked an international outcry, say that the questioning over the nude photographs is China's latest effort to intimidate its most famous social critic.

The videographer, Zhao Zhao, said Beijing police interrogated him for about four hours on the motives behind the photographs.

"They said: 'Don't you know that the photos that you've taken are obscene photos?'" Zhao told Reuters by telephone. "I said: 'I didn't know that' and said 'how can they be considered obscene?' They said they've characterized them as such."

Ai paid a bond of 8.45 million yuan ($1.3 million) last Tuesday, paving the way to file what he fears may be an ultimately futile appeal on a tax evasion charge that his supporters have said is a political vendetta. The money was raised from contributions from his supporters.

Wen Yunchao, who posted two nude photographs of himself on the website, said he believed the investigation against Ai's assistant was the latest form of "persecution" against Ai.

"This is a matter that has made many people very indignant," Hong Kong-based Wen said. "Because the interpretation of people's naked bodies in itself is an individual freedom and a form of creative freedom. Also, we don't see any pornographic elements in (Ai's) photographs. So we are using this extreme method to express our protest."

Many of the photos posted on the website were accompanied with politically tinged commentaries.

"Grandpa, is this pornography?" wrote a user, who was photographed bare-bottomed and writing on a wall with the words "'89 political turmoil," referring to the June 4, 1989, armed crackdown in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

During Ai's confinement, police had also questioned him about the nude photographs that were taken in August last year, Ai told Reuters.

Ai said the nude photographs had no deeper political meaning and were not meant to criticize the government, but he added that the government could perceive the photos as a "rebellious act."

"We did it because it was a way to remove fear and the feeling of isolation," Ai told Reuters. "Because fear and the feeling of isolation are defining characteristics in certain societies.

"Today, in reality, these (actions) are inappropriate for the time being. So when I see everyone like this, I feel young people still have some conscience."

(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Don Durfee)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111121/wl_nm/us_china_dissident

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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Easy to Beat: Next-Gen Cardiac Care Includes Wireless Pacemakers

cardiac, pacemakerWiCS: In the new pacemaker called the Wireless Cardiac Stimulation (WiCS) system, a wireless electrode replaces one or more leads. A conventional pacemaker is implanted just below the collarbone in the left side of the chest and sends out a signal through a lead running into the heart's right side. The WiCS unit, implanted near the heart, wirelessly senses the pacemaker's pulse via this lead; it then sends an ultrasonic signal to the wireless electrode on the left side, which converts the sonic energy into electrical energy to pace the left ventricle synchronously with the right. Image: Courtesy of Cambridge Consultants

Millions of pacemakers have been successfully implanted in the past half century to regulate erratic heartbeats, but the electrical leads, which connect the device to the heart, complicate the surgery and increase infection risks. The heart's continuous and vigorous beating also creates strain on the leads and can damage them over time.

Now researchers seek to go wireless. In a new pacemaker called the Wireless Cardiac Stimulation (WiCS) system, a wireless electrode replaces one or more leads. California start-up EBR Systems, working with English technology-development firm Cambridge Consultants, recently announced their system was successfully implanted in 100 patients needing cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) during a series of human clinical trials in Europe. (Wireless signaling is not entirely new to pacemakers?doctors have for the past few years been able to communicate with them via the Internet or even smart phones.)

CRT patients suffer from a type of chronic heart failure requiring both the left and right ventricles to be paced. Normally, such devices require the implantation of three leads, the trickiest of which is threaded through a complex route running from the right atrium, into the coronary sinus on the outside surface of the heart, and then to the left ventricle. In the new device, a small electrode inserted in the left side of the heart replaces one or more of the leads.

In the system, a conventional pacemaker, implanted just below the collarbone in the left side of the chest, sends out a signal through a lead running into the heart's right side. The WiCS unit, implanted near the heart, wirelessly senses the pacemaker's pulse via this lead; it then sends an ultrasonic signal to the wireless electrode on the left side, which converts the sonic energy into electrical energy to pace the left ventricle synchronously with the right.

Advances in low-power microelectronics and improved digital signal processing at high speed and low power enabled the system, says Andrew Diston, Cambridge's director of global medical technology. The ultimate goal is to eliminate all wire leads, making the pacemaker easier to implant. Another goal is to integrate the functions of the conventional pacemaker and the WiCS into a single device.

Wireless technology is notoriously tough on battery life. Diston says that most of the pacemaker's battery?generally lasting seven or eight years before needing to be replaced?is still dedicated to monitoring the heart and deciding when to pace. The WiCS system has its own battery, and no modification to existing pacemakers is required, he added.

Diston is hesitant to set a time frame for the system's availability to the general public. WiCS continues to be tested in human clinical trials in Europe and will first be available there. Before it is made available in the U.S., it will need successful clinical trials here and approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

WiCS is potentially a disruptive technology, says Bruce Wilkoff, director of cardiac pacing and tachyarrhythmia devices at the Cleveland Clinic, who was not involved with the research. It is still immature, he adds, because it requires other components to coordinate the stimulation.

Given that wireless technology is typically not as reliable as its wired counterpart, the largest concern involves the signal?whether the ultrasound will penetrate the heart muscle consistently and efficiently transfer energy to the wireless lead, Wilkoff says. Still, he adds, "I don't think that there is any concern about safety."

Pacemakers in general require patients to take certain safety precautions, such as not placing cell phones directly against the chest and avoiding strong electric or magnetic fields. Whereas some newer pacemakers are not affected by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, patients should consult their physicians before undergoing such tests. The addition of wireless to a pacemaker does not change the need to take these precautions.

Some experiments to "hack" into pacemakers capable of communicating wirelessly with computers and smart phones have been demonstrated by security researchers, but there have been no reported incidents of wireless pacemaker data being tampered with to the detriment of a patient. Still, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Massachusetts Amherst say they are developing a jamming device that could be used to shield pacemakers from cyber attackers.

EBR and Cambridge are not only ones working on wireless pacemakers. Minneapolis-based Medtronic, Inc., last year introduced plans for a small, self-contained and fully leadless pacemaker the company hopes to market within three or four years. The Medtronic titanium-encased device will have a circuit board, an oscillator to generate current, a capacitor to store and rapidly dispense charge, memory to store data, and a telemetry system to wirelessly transfer that data to a computer or smart phone.

Unlike WiCS, however, Medtronic's bullet-shaped pacemaker, about the size of an antibiotic pill, would be delivered directly into a patient's right ventricle through a catheter, without surgery. Unfortunately, as currently designed, the Medtronic device could not be repositioned or retrieved from the heart after its seven-year battery failed. It would remain in the heart to be replaced by a new miniature pacemaker.


Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=b3fa455b2001eb350322181a541a40cf

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Monday, November 21, 2011

Penn State trustees panel sets news conference Monday (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? A special committee formed by Penn State trustees to investigate the university's actions after reports of child sex abuse by a former football coach said it will hold a news conference Monday in connection with its investigation.

The special committee was announced days after the November 5 announcement that former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was accused by a grand jury of sexually abusing eight young boys over 15 years. Sandusky faces 40 charges.

The trustees fired legendary football coach Joe Paterno and university President Graham Spanier within days of announcing the special committee. The school's athletic director and another official, both charged with perjury by the grand jury, have also stepped down over the scandal.

Sandusky, 67, retired as a Penn State football coach in 1999 but continued to have access to the university's facilities as recently as a few weeks ago.

Investigations of the allegations which have shaken the college football world and state of Pennsylvania are continuing by prosecutors, the university, the U.S. Department of Education and the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

Sandusky is alleged to have met many of the boys through The Second Mile, a charity he started in 1977, which is also carrying out an investigation of the charges.

Trustees named Ken Frazier, president and CEO of Merck, to chair the special committee that was appointed to investigate "the circumstances that gave rise to the grand jury report."

The special committee is expected to be made up of a majority of university trustees, plus faculty, students and alumni.

(Reporting by David Bailey. Editing by Peter Bohan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111121/us_nm/us_crime_coach_trustees

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Wednesday, November 16, 2011

After week's turmoil Penn State finally plays (AP)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. ? The Penn State players left the field with their heads bowed, the fans mostly silent.

A lifetime worth of emotions was crammed into the past week. Shock, rage, regret and, now, exhaustion. The child sex-abuse scandal involving former assistant Jerry Sandusky cost Joe Paterno his job and, no doubt, scarred Penn State's soul.

A football game on a brilliant autumn afternoon won't erase it.

It was, however, a start.

"We've had better weeks in our lives, obviously," Paterno's son Jay, the quarterbacks coach, said after No. 12 Penn State's 17-14 loss to No. 19 Nebraska on Saturday. "The world's kind of turned upside down, but I think our kids were resilient."

The game was a combination of pep rally, cleansing and tribute, a way to acknowledge the past and take a step into the future. Affection for Penn State and Paterno was abundantly visible from players, fans and, yes, coaches. So was support for abuse victims, the kind of empathy many felt was missing in the days after news of the scandal broke.

Beaver Stadium was awash in blue ? the color associated with child-abuse prevention ? and public-service announcements flashed on the scoreboard throughout the game. A fund-raising campaign for abuse-prevention charities at the stadium gates raised more than $22,000.

In one of the most poignant moments in a week filled with lurid allegations, Nebraska and Penn State players gathered at midfield and knelt for a moment while Cornhuskers running backs coach Ron Brown offered a prayer.

"It felt like we all banded together. And it wasn't just about football," said Melissa Basinger, a 2005 Penn State grad who made the trip from Charlotte, N.C. "It was about coming together as a school, and showing the country, world or whatever that this does not define who we are."

Sandusky, once considered Paterno's heir apparent, is charged with sexually abusing eight boys over a 15-year span, with several of the alleged assaults occurring on Penn State property. Two university officials are charged with perjury, and Paterno and president Graham Spanier were fired for not doing enough after Sandusky was accused of molesting a young boy in the showers of the campus football complex in 2002.

The scandal would be damaging enough to anyone who prides himself on integrity. That it involved Paterno, major college football's winningest coach and the man who'd come to symbolize all that was good at Penn State, made it that much worse.

Though he was not at Beaver Stadium for the game ? Jay Paterno joked that maybe he was out mowing the lawn ? it took a while to get used to not seeing JoePa on the sideline, pacing back and forth, hands jammed in the pockets of his trademark blue windbreaker, watching the game unfold through those Coke-bottle glasses.

Students seemed almost afraid to acknowledge his absence, unsure how to react to having someone else in charge of the team for the first time in 46 seasons. But when Paterno appeared on the scoreboard as part of a video montage for Nittany Lion seniors ? it was Senior Day ? they let loose with gusto.

"Joe Pa-ter-no!" they chanted, clapping in rhythm.

No one felt the absence of the 84-year-old more keenly than his son, Jay, who choked up during a postgame interview.

"Dad, I wish you were here," he said, walking away from the cameras before the tears began to flow.

When the team arrived at the stadium, the normally low-key son pumped his fist and shouted, "Let's go!" as he followed the starting quarterback off the bus, just as his father always did. The younger Paterno high-fived passers-by on the way into the stadium, and several staffers gave him an encouraging embrace before he entered the locker room.

After the game, he shared a few details of a letter he'd dropped off at his parents' house earlier in the day. In it, he told his larger-than-life father all the things he'd never found the words to say before.

"I said, `You and I, in my life, haven't always seen eye to eye. But generally speaking, it's (because) I had to grow up, to catch up to make eye contact with you,'" Jay Paterno recalled. "There were a lot of lessons that I learned from him."

At Joe Paterno's house nearby, a small clutch of TV cameras and reporters stood outside. Two people walked to the door, rang the bell and left when no one answered. On the lawn was a pair of homemade signs facing the house. One said, "We Love You Joe, Thank You" and the other, "Thanks Joe."

A small American flag was planted nearby.

"There's not going to be closure anytime soon," said Brandon Hewitt, a senior from York, Pa. "I feel horrible what happened to the kids. I feel bad for what happened about Joe. But today was about football, and it was heartwarming to see the university rally around a terrible time."

___

Associated Press reporters Michael Rubinkam and Genaro C. Armas in State College contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111113/ap_on_sp_co_ne/fbc_penn_state_gameday

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Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Should we prepare for the end? New report calls for decriminalization of assisted dying in Canada

Should we prepare for the end? New report calls for decriminalization of assisted dying in Canada [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 15-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Ben Norman
Scholarlynews@wiley.com
44-124-377-0375
Wiley-Blackwell

A report commissioned by the Royal Society of Canada, and published today in the journal Bioethics, claims that assisted suicide should be legally permitted for competent individuals who make a free and informed decision, while on both a personal and a national level insufficient plans and policies are made for the end of life.

End-of-life decision-making is an issue wrapped in controversy and contradictions for Canadians. The report found that most people want to die at home, but few do; most believe planning for dying is important and should be started while people are healthy, but almost no one does it. And while most Canadians support the decriminalisation of voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide, both remain illegal under the Criminal Code of Canada.

The Royal Society of Canada (RSC), a national organisation of distinguished scholars, artists and scientists, believes the time has come for a national debate on end-of-life decision making as assisted dying is a critically important public policy issue, where opinion, practice and the law seem out of alignment.

"The society commissioned us, a panel of six Canadian and international experts on bioethics, clinical medicine, health law and policy, and philosophy, to prepare this report both to trigger a national conversation on end of life issues and contribute material for those discussions," said Professor Udo Schuklenk, Co-Editor of Bioethics, Professor of Philosophy and Ontario Research Chair in Bioethics at Queen's University, Canada.

"It is clear that Canadians are not preparing adequately for the death we and all those we love will inevitably face," said Schuklenk. "Although most people think it is wise to make wishes for care at the end known (in case they are not competent to do so when the time comes) less than a third have some sort of formal advance directive, fewer than half have designated a substitute decision maker or even discussed their wishes with their families, and fewer than a tenth have discussed end of life care with their physicians."

The report also reveals that quality palliative care is unavailable to many Canadians and that the scope of palliative care needs to continue to expand beyond cancer. There is also confusion and inconsistency around important aspects of care for the dying quite apart from euthanasia and assisted suicide. Palliative sedation and decisions to withhold or withdraw potentially life-sustaining treatments from patients against the wishes of their families require attention. Legal and clinical uncertainties around these practices cause much needless suffering for patients and stress for families and health care practitioners.

"The issues only become more complex and contentious when confronting euthanasia and assisted suicide," said Schuklenk. "We carefully considered Canadian values, international experience in permissive regimes, and legal and ethical aspects of these practices and came to the unanimous conclusion that Canada should have a permissive yet carefully regulated and monitored system with respect to assisted death."

Autonomy, or the capacity for self-determination, was also found to be a paramount value to Canadians in the RSC report. Respect for autonomy requires respect for competent individuals' free and informed decisions with respect to how and when they die. The RSC panel argue that the concept of dignity cannot provide a sound basis for either supporting or rejecting a permissive regime with respect to voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide.

"We discussed in considerable detail the arguments against assisted suicide. The evidence does not support claims that decriminalising voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide poses a threat to vulnerable people," concluded Schuklenk. "The evidence does not support claims that decriminalisation will lead us down a slippery slope from assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia to non-voluntary or involuntary euthanasia. The evidence does not support claims that decriminalisation will have a corrosive effect on access to or the development of palliative care.

"Canadians must confront the difficult issues of our end of life care. As a society, we must do the same, acknowledging the need to formulate and enact a national approach to end-of-life decision-making that will bring compassionate clarity to this critically important issue of our time."

###


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


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Should we prepare for the end? New report calls for decriminalization of assisted dying in Canada [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 15-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Ben Norman
Scholarlynews@wiley.com
44-124-377-0375
Wiley-Blackwell

A report commissioned by the Royal Society of Canada, and published today in the journal Bioethics, claims that assisted suicide should be legally permitted for competent individuals who make a free and informed decision, while on both a personal and a national level insufficient plans and policies are made for the end of life.

End-of-life decision-making is an issue wrapped in controversy and contradictions for Canadians. The report found that most people want to die at home, but few do; most believe planning for dying is important and should be started while people are healthy, but almost no one does it. And while most Canadians support the decriminalisation of voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide, both remain illegal under the Criminal Code of Canada.

The Royal Society of Canada (RSC), a national organisation of distinguished scholars, artists and scientists, believes the time has come for a national debate on end-of-life decision making as assisted dying is a critically important public policy issue, where opinion, practice and the law seem out of alignment.

"The society commissioned us, a panel of six Canadian and international experts on bioethics, clinical medicine, health law and policy, and philosophy, to prepare this report both to trigger a national conversation on end of life issues and contribute material for those discussions," said Professor Udo Schuklenk, Co-Editor of Bioethics, Professor of Philosophy and Ontario Research Chair in Bioethics at Queen's University, Canada.

"It is clear that Canadians are not preparing adequately for the death we and all those we love will inevitably face," said Schuklenk. "Although most people think it is wise to make wishes for care at the end known (in case they are not competent to do so when the time comes) less than a third have some sort of formal advance directive, fewer than half have designated a substitute decision maker or even discussed their wishes with their families, and fewer than a tenth have discussed end of life care with their physicians."

The report also reveals that quality palliative care is unavailable to many Canadians and that the scope of palliative care needs to continue to expand beyond cancer. There is also confusion and inconsistency around important aspects of care for the dying quite apart from euthanasia and assisted suicide. Palliative sedation and decisions to withhold or withdraw potentially life-sustaining treatments from patients against the wishes of their families require attention. Legal and clinical uncertainties around these practices cause much needless suffering for patients and stress for families and health care practitioners.

"The issues only become more complex and contentious when confronting euthanasia and assisted suicide," said Schuklenk. "We carefully considered Canadian values, international experience in permissive regimes, and legal and ethical aspects of these practices and came to the unanimous conclusion that Canada should have a permissive yet carefully regulated and monitored system with respect to assisted death."

Autonomy, or the capacity for self-determination, was also found to be a paramount value to Canadians in the RSC report. Respect for autonomy requires respect for competent individuals' free and informed decisions with respect to how and when they die. The RSC panel argue that the concept of dignity cannot provide a sound basis for either supporting or rejecting a permissive regime with respect to voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide.

"We discussed in considerable detail the arguments against assisted suicide. The evidence does not support claims that decriminalising voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide poses a threat to vulnerable people," concluded Schuklenk. "The evidence does not support claims that decriminalisation will lead us down a slippery slope from assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia to non-voluntary or involuntary euthanasia. The evidence does not support claims that decriminalisation will have a corrosive effect on access to or the development of palliative care.

"Canadians must confront the difficult issues of our end of life care. As a society, we must do the same, acknowledging the need to formulate and enact a national approach to end-of-life decision-making that will bring compassionate clarity to this critically important issue of our time."

###


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/w-swp111511.php

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Monday, November 14, 2011

Docphin Launches A ?Bloomberg For Doctors?

Docphin_Image_1_LogoToday, Docphin is launching a new Web service the company likens to a "Bloomberg for Doctors." The site aims to help physicians organize, bookmark, read and track medical news and research from a number of sources, all within a single dashboard interface. Included with the service are simple tools to view and filter through hundreds of medical journals, something which has been difficult to do using traditional research methods. The service even offers a built-in personalized Twitter widget for keeping up with medical societies, sources and other leaders in a doctor's given speciality.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/_BKBDjCK4dM/

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Private equity takes two approaches to Yahoo: sources (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Private equity firms including KKR and TPG Capital are looking to potentially buy minority stakes of up to 20 percent in Yahoo Inc with an eye to eventually taking over the whole company, people with knowledge of the situation said.

These buyout firms have signed confidentiality agreements with Yahoo and could be willing to team up with its co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo, who together own 9.5 percent of the Internet company, according to the sources.

Acquiring a minority stake could give the buyout firms an advantage in taking full control once the leverage finance market opens up, and also provide them with the potential for representation on Yahoo's board, the sources said.

Another group of firms, including Blackstone Group, Providence Equity, Bain Capital and Hellman & Friedman have held out against signing nondisclosure agreements that would restrict their ability to form consortiums with strategic partners such as China's Alibaba Group or Japan's Softbank Corp, they said.

Carlyle Group has also not signed an NDA, sources told Reuters last week.

Yahoo and the private equity firms declined to comment.

This split in approach comes as bidders jockey for the best position to forge a deal for Yahoo, the Internet pioneer whose growth has stagnated in recent years due to competition from the likes of Google Inc and Facebook.

Yahoo's strategic review, announced in September when the board fired CEO Carol Bartz, is complicated by the different agendas of players with a say in the situation, including its Asian partners, the co-founders, the board and shareholders.

That has made for slow going, and the deal process and alliances remain fluid. Silver Lake, for instance, which had been a significant holdout over the restrictive terms of the confidentiality agreement, signed the pact, the AllThingsD blog reported on Wednesday.

Yahoo's board has come under attack from two major shareholders. Daniel Loeb of activist hedge fund Third Point LLC said last week he was deeply concerned that Yahoo is looking at deals that will allow private equity firms to gain substantial equity positions in the company.

Capital Research and Management, Yahoo's top shareholder, is "extremely unhappy" with the way the company is handling sale discussions, a source familiar with the institutional investor's thinking said this week.

'PIPE' DEAL?

A minority investment, such as that being considered by KKR and TPG, could take the form of a private investment in public equity (PIPE) transaction, two of the sources said. PIPE is often used by small and mid-cap firms that have difficulty raising capital in public markets. They typically get stock at a discount to the public market valuation.

It was not clear how a PIPE could be structured in the case of Yahoo, which has a roughly $20 billion market value.

The plan is for Yahoo to then take on debt to fund a large share buyback, increasing the stake of these investors to 40 percent to 45 percent, Reuters has reported.

That could give Yahoo time to turn around the company and allow it to form partnerships with social media companies like Facebook, Yelp and Twitter and move into mobile.

"The PE firms who have signed the nondisclosure agreements are seeking a minority stake as a half-step in buying the company while the leverage markets remain closed," said one of the sources close to the situation. "They want to get a pole position and board room presence by owning a big slug of the equity."

The key risk in that strategy is the investor would be betting that Yang and the current management can turn Yahoo around, the sources said.

Executing a turnaround in a public market, where Yahoo is bound by shareholder demands and disclosure rules, is another hurdle, according to the people.

"A lot of the PE firms who have not signed NDAs are saying, 'I don't want anything to do with that'," one source said.

Another wrinkle is that this plan would call for Yahoo to keep its Asian assets, which present growth opportunities and are seen as necessary to finance a large borrowing. But holding on to the Asian assets could face opposition from Alibaba and some Yahoo shareholders who are keen to monetize the assets.

Alibaba chief Jack Ma has publicly expressed interest in buying all or part of Yahoo itself.

The Chinese e-commerce giant is discussing various deal structures that would allow it to buy back Yahoo's 40 percent stake in Alibaba, the sources said.

Alibaba is talking with potential partners -- both trade and private equity buyers -- that would be interested in owning Yahoo's core U.S. business, one of the sources said.

(Editing by Paritosh Bansal, Tiffany Wu and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/internet/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111111/wr_nm/us_yahoo_privateequity_f

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Sunday, November 13, 2011

[OOC] The Mary Sue Story

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"ATATATATATATATA!!!!"

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Thursday, November 10, 2011

China October exports growth weakest in 8 months (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) ? China's exports in October rose at their weakest pace in eight months, underlining official concern about the sector that has dragged on economic growth this year while imports jumped much more than expected.

Customs figures showed Chinese exports rose 15.9 percent in October over the year earlier month, below a forecast of 16.5 percent.

It was the lowest growth since 2.4 percent in February as exporters feel the chill of a weakening global economy and particularly the impact of the downturn in the European Union, China's biggest export market.

Imports though jumped 28.7 percent, well above forecasts for a rise of 23.0 percent and reflective of a buoyant domestic economy.

That was supported by other October data Wednesday showing healthy growth in retail sales and investment in roads and other infrastructure and a sharp drop in inflation.

The October trade surplus came in at $17 billion, much lower than a forecast for $24.9 billion.

"The smaller surplus and slowing export growth reflect signs of a slowdown in the Chinese economy -- all point to a soft landing for the economy, given yesterday's CPI numbers that showed price pressures are easing," said Suresh Ramanathan, a currency strategist at CIMB in Kuala Lumpur.

China's leaders have begun talking in recent weeks about "fine tuning" macroeconomic policy to maintain economic growth, which slowed in the third quarter to 9.1 percent, its weakest in more than two years.

Government officials have expressed concern about weakening external demand for goods from China's factories, even though the sector is on track to expand by an annual 11 percent this year -- in line with official targets.

Exports were a net drag on China's economic growth in the first nine months of this year as the sector felt the chill of a weak global market.

"Domestic demand is still resilient and may suggest that the economy would only slow down in a gradual way," said Wang Hu, an analyst at Guotai Junan Securities in Shanghai.

"But (there is) no risk of a sharp slowdown."

The trade surplus swelled from $14.5 billion in September. But at $17 billion it is well below the biggest monthly surplus of the year, which was $31.5 billion in July.

(Reporting by Langi Chiang, Kevin Yao; Writing by Neil Fullick; Editing by Dean Yates)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111110/bs_nm/us_china_economy_trade

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Kelly Osbourne sent to Miami hospital





>>> we are back now at 8:18 with life lessons from rock music 's ultimate survivor. today contributing correspondent jenna bush hagar recently caught up with the one and only ozzy osbourne .

>> that's right. somebody has to do it. we all know him as a legendary heavy metal star who pushes things to the limit. but when i sat down with ozzy i got to see another side of him that just may surprise you. he's the prince of darkness , a family man. and now ozzy osbourne has taken on the role of doctor. he's written a new book "trust me, i'm dr. ozzy " a collection of letters from his weekly newspaper and magazine column where the 62-year-old rocker gives tongue-in-cheek advice on everything from parenting to drug and alcohol abuse . tell me about how your new book came about.

>> it started as kind of a joke at first. but i've survived rock 'n roll lifestyle and the drinking and the drugs and, you know, what goes on in rock 'n roll and i've lived to tell the tale. and so people along the way would say, what's this pill, what's that pill? is this any good for that? and i'd go, well, i've sampled quite a variety and so i thought it would be funny to do a spoof on that.

>> reporter: so in some ways this is a perfect job for you.

>> you know, ignorance is the biggest killer. go see your doctor. you know. that's what they're there for.

>> reporter: but in some ways, who better to give that advice than ozzy ? a man who has survived 40 years of drug use and that infamous run-in with the bat. your advice for somebody that is going to bite a bat?

>> don't even try it. you see, every action has a reaction. okay? you bite the head off something and you're going to have some shots. that ain't cool. when i took the rabies shots it was like somebody shoving a golf ball in my [ bleep ].

>> reporter: and he has seen his fair share of doctors.

>> incomplete' a hypochondriac. if i wasn't there is a good chance sharon wouldn't be -- i'm always going for these new tests. i went. sharon went and they found the cancer.

>> reporter: in 2002 his crazy life was on display when "the osbournes" premiered on mtv. during the show's run, audiences watched as ozzy and his wife sharon battled her colon cancer .

>> to see the woman that you're married through go through these chemotherapy stuff -- a kick in the pants you know. she went through hell.

>> reporter: throughout the entire run of the show, ozzy was admittedly high on drugs. so you're sober now.

>> ish.

>> reporter: soberish.

>> i'm sober but i'm still crazy .

>> reporter: how do you feel now that you've got control over drugs and alcohol?

>> well, i have to take a bunch of medication because of this thing called hereditary parkinsonnian tremor which is a tremor that i have. and for many years i was getting diagnosed -- i've spent fortunes because i thought it was the dts from coming off the alcohol.

>> reporter: he credits much of his sobriety to sharon 's tough love.

>> sharon !

>> reporter: what has she done to help you get where you are?

>> she wouldn't take any crap. i remember one occasion when we were in new york and i'm having a bad time with it and i said to sharon , i wanted her to cuddle me and tell me it's going to be all right. and i go, i think i'm dying. sharon goes, die quietly. i've got an appointment at 9:00. i'm like, what sympathy do i get?

>> reporter: at home, ozzy enjoys spending time with his 11 dogs.

>> shut the [ bleep ] up.

>> reporter: and his brand new ferrari.

>> well, this is a direct result of being sober. my first car.

>> reporter: this is your first car because you just got your driver's license?

>> yeah, yeah, yeah.

>> reporter: that's crazy.

>> i know. i am. rock 'n roll.

>> reporter: with the rock 'n roll career that spanned more than 40 years, ozzy shows no sign of slowing down.

>> so we're here in your man cave.

>> yeah.

>> reporter: your recording studio , right? do you spend a lot of time down here?

>> recently i have. when i'm writing songs i spend a lot of time here.

>> reporter: sharon seems to always be looking at you, right?

>> that's right. don't you dare think about taking drugs.

>> reporter: is that why you hang that up there?

>> i didn't hang it up there.

>> reporter: who hung it up there?

>> who do you think?

>> reporter: sharon put it up there, right? ozzy says another key to staying sober is he has traded alcohol for exercise. and his son jack is expecting his first child so ozzy will have another grand baby. he is a grandfather.

>> a lot of roles for ozzy osbourne . i like how, you know, was it easy for you to read the supers as he was talking so you could understand what he was saying?

>> i actually could understand every word out of his mouth. i don't know what that says about me but i loved him. i think he's a great guy and he puts family first and, well, rock 'n roll first and family quite second.

>> jenna bush hagar, thank you

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45188319/ns/today-entertainment/

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