American Buddhist Net

WASHINGTON — In a giant auction, the federal government has agreed to sell for pennies on the dollar most of the 120,000 formaldehyde-tainted trailers it bought nearly five years ago for Hurricane Katrina victims. But the sale of the units, perhaps the most visible symbol of the government's bungled response to the hurricane, has triggered a new round of charges that it is endangering future buyers for years to come.

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It's a haiku: Big storm, trailers, sold. ABN

Rainbow trout with six-pack abs and burly shoulders have emerged from a University of Rhode Island laboratory, and could someday find their way to humans' dinner tables. That's assuming diners don't panic at the sight of the muscular ichthyoid awaiting their knives and forks.

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Why Doctors Believe the “New” CCR Will Save Many More Lives than CPR…

CCR includes continuous chest compressions with no early ventilations. A recent study that compared CCR with standard CPR in patients demonstrated that both survival and percentage of survivors with good neurological outcome were significantly improved in those who underwent CCR.

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Very much worth viewing the video. I have sometimes wondered about using mouth-to-mouth on a disgusting stranger. This technique is supposedly better, and it is easier to do and requires no mouth-to-mouth. ABN

SYDNEY : More than 90 authors, including Nobel winner JM Coetzee, have condemned China for refusing an HIV-positive Australian writer entry to the country for a government-sponsored tour.

Robert Dessaix revealed his health status in his application for a visa which was refused without explanation.

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COLUMBIA, S.C. — Neighbors were chagrined last week when the police here found the body of a 75-year-old woman who had frozen to death, alone in her house, during unexpectedly frigid weather.

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Well-worth reading this story. ABN

New York (CNN) -- The WTC Captive Insurance Co. announced settlements Thursday with more than 10,000 plaintiffs who claimed sickness or injuries after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The settlements could total up to $657 million.

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...National Surveys on Drug Use and Health show a rate of lifetime inhalant use among 12 year olds of 6.9 percent, compared to a rate of 5.1 percent for nonmedical use of prescription type drugs; a rate of 1.4 percent for marijuana; a rate of 0.7 percent for use of hallucinogens; and a 0.1 rate for cocaine use.

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WASHINGTON -- A scan of brain activity can effectively read a person's mind, researchers said Thursday.

British scientists from University College London found they could differentiate brain activity linked to different memories and thereby identify thought patterns by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

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SALT LAKE CITY — Nearly two decades after vets began returning from the Middle East complaining of Gulf War Syndrome, the federal government has yet to formally accept that their vague jumble of symptoms constitutes a legitimate illness. Here, at the Society of Toxicology annual meeting, yesterday, researchers rolled out a host of brain images — various types of magnetic-resonance scans and brain-wave measurements — that they say graphically and unambiguously depict Gulf War Syndrome.

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OBESITY kills, everyone knows that. But is it possible that we've been looking at the problem in the wrong way? It seems getting fatter may be part of your body's defence against the worst effects of unhealthy eating, rather than their direct cause.

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Interesting idea. Something else that is interesting about this piece is most of us who read it will consider the information calmly and take something from these preliminary conclusions. Most of us will not feel frustrated that the question of why we get fat has not yet been answered. We expect debate and discussion, and many of us enjoy that part of the issue the most. Most of us are willing and able to reserve judgment, or change our minds as new evidence indicates. Few of us are threatened by competing theories. Same goes for many other prominent questions in the world of today--question about cosmology, the big bang, how to cure cancer, etc. Why not all of the questions and issues before us? ABN

HAVANA — Looking in the mirror used to make Yiliam Gonzalez sick to her stomach.

"I would see myself, and my body didn't match who I was," said the 28-year-old wedding pianist, who went by William before receiving a sex change under Cuba's universal health care system.

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The parents of a profoundly disabled 11-year-old girl have won a court case to have her sterilised, prompting claims that the ruling amounted to an "abuse of human rights".

The Australian girl, known only as Angela, suffers from an extreme form of Retts Syndrome, a neurological disorder. She cannot communicate and "acts as a three-month-old baby would".

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Internal CIA documents reveal a meticulous protocol that was far more brutal than Dick Cheney's "dunk in the water"

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Neuroskeptic covers a fascinating case of a man born with a genetic mutation meaning he had a severe lifelong deficiency of both serotonin and dopamine.

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MANILA (AFP) – Philippine Catholic bishops, already waging a bitter battle with the government over birth control, received an unwelcome gift Monday when female activists delivered them two baskets of condoms.

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LOS ANGELES — James Gray once saw himself as a drug warrior, a former federal prosecutor and county judge who sent people to prison for dealing pot and other drug offenses. Gradually, though, he became convinced that the ban on marijuana was making it more accessible to young people, not less.

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Danish Scientist Absconds with $2 million More Info - Key character who "proved" vaccines don't cause autism.

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...The Department of Health wants to make tobacco use one of the criteria for deciding what age rating to give a film, a move that could mean some animated movies are out of bounds for children.

"Smoking (in movies) has a much worse impact on health than sex and violence," the department said in a statement posted on its website.

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Yes, this is the beginning of so many tragic stories. Here's another one, from Columbus, Missouri, where a SWAT team busted into a house, shot two dogs -- including a corgi, for crying out loud -- in full view of a 7 year old child, and found...a little pot in the house.

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"A Massive, Toxicological Experiment with Our Children"

By STEVEN HIGGS

One of the nation's leading voices on children's environmental health has called for focused and expanded research into the cause-effect relation between industrial chemicals and autism.

"Long and tragic experience that began with studies of lead and methylmercury has documented that toxic chemicals can damage the developing human brain to produce a spectrum of neurodevelopmental disorders," Dr. Philip Landrigan from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine wrote in a Jan. 16, 2010, article in the medical journal Current Opinion in Pediatrics.

Today's children, he noted, "are at risk of exposure to 3,000 synthetic chemicals produced in quantities of more than 1 million pounds per year, termed high-production-volume (HPV) chemicals. HPV chemicals are found in a wide array of consumer goods, cosmetics, medications, motor fuels and building materials."

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I agree with everything Landrigan says, except his use of the word "experiment." That was and is no experiment. It's greed--careless, sloppy, abusive, ignorant, selfish greed. ABN

China is farming African wild Rhinos in order to harvest their horns for alleged medicinal properties, a newspaper reported Sunday quoting a report by international conservation monitors.

China has imported 141 live white rhino from South Africa since 2000 - far more than is needed to promote tourism - with the possible aim of setting up rhino farms, the Sunday Times quoted the report as saying.

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Oriental medicine may still be an unfamiliar concept to most expats and even those who are interested are often discouraged by linguistic barriers.

One person to turn to is Raimund Royer, Korea's one and only Western oriental doctor.

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ScienceDaily (Mar. 5, 2010) — A nanoparticle growing in popularity as a bactericidal agent has been shown to be toxic to fish, according to a Purdue University study.

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The Roman Catholic bishops signaled Thursday that if agreement is reached with House leaders on anti-abortion language, the church would work to get the votes needed to protect the provisions in the Senate — and thereby advance the shared goal with Democrats of health care reform.

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China must urgently address the physical fitness of the nation's youth or run the risk of raising a generation incapable of fighting the Japanese in a future war, the head of the country's top sports university said Thursday.

The government must immediately invest some of its new wealth in ensuring that children take regular exercise, Beijing Sports University president Yang Hua told the sports group of the largely ceremonial advisory body to China's annual parliament.

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The dreaded morning-after feeling could be a thing of the past after scientists in Korea came up with a technique that allows drinkers to avoid a hangover.

A team of researchers in South Korea added extra oxygen to drinks and found that the body was then able to metabolise the booze quicker and eliminate the alcohol quicker - cutting down the after effects.

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If you're fighting the battle of the bulge, most of your attention — and frustration — is probably aimed at your midsection. It makes sense, since that's where the extra pounds tend to gravitate, especially with the creep of middle age, piling on to form that dreaded spare tire.

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Visitors to Monticello don't learn how Jefferson cultivated poppies, and his personal opium use may as well never have happened.

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