Sunday, December 10, 2006

Space shuttle mission STS-116 began today with its successful launch at 8:48pm EST (01:47 GMT). Liftoff was uneventful with no immediate problems. Last Thursday’s launch attempt was scrubbed due to low, dense cloud cover. It is the first Space Shuttle night launch in over four years and the last mission planned for pad 39b.

In the complex mission Discovery will first dock with the International Space Station. In three spacewalks the astronauts will install a segment of the station’s integrated truss and replace the orbital laboratory’s power wiring system.

Monday, April 25, 2005

Children who spend more time playing with other children are less likely to end up getting childhood cancers, a UK study published today in the British Medical Journal has found. The finding supports the researchers’ theory that reduced exposure to common infections in the first year of life increases the risk of developing acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).

A total of nearly 10,000 children took part in the study, located in 10 regions across the UK. Amount of time spent in daycare and social activity, during the first year of life, were used to gauge the level of exposure of the infants to common infections such as cold and flu.

Day care in the first year of life for at least two days a week, with at least three other kids, halved a child’s chance of contracting ALL. Those who were rated in the category “any social activity” still had an improvement over the children rated as “no social activity”: they had about 3/4 the chance of getting the disease.

The study describes that effect was “more striking” for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia — a cancer affecting blood and the immune system — than it was for the set of all other cancers. Increasing levels of activity saw decreasing chances of childhood cancers, when compared against children who during their first year had no regular social activity outside the home.

Theories have been around since the 1940s that childhood exposure to infection was related to the development of childhood leukaemia — one, like the working theory of the UK study, said that lack of immune challenge was a factor, another that leukaemia developed as a delayed result of some type of infection.

The research was conducted by the Institute of Cancer Research in London and in Sutton, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of York, Christie Hospital and Central Manchester and Manchester Children’s University Hospitals NHS Trusts, and the University of Edinburgh.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Homebush Bay, New South Wales —

In yesterday’s men’s first place final at the Rollers & Gliders World Challenge at the Sport Centre at the Sydney Olympic Park, the Australian Rollers beat the Great Britain men’s national wheelchair basketball team 70–64.

Like the preceding game featuring Australia’s women that was only won in the fourth quarter, this match was close until the very end. Australia won the tip but spent much of the first quarter tied with Great Britain. The two teams were tied at 4–4 with 7:33 in the first, and 10–10 with 3:16 left in the first. Australia took a narrow 15–13 lead into second quarter. Australia held a narrow lead during the second quarter, taking only a one point lead of 30–29 into the half. Australia managed to get a five point lead of 44–39 with 3:10 left in the third. They held onto this lead at the end of the third with the score sitting at 48–42. The fourth quarter saw both teams in foul trouble, with five plus personal fouls each by the last minute of the game. Great Britain lost their composure at one point, with players loudly arguing with each other on court. With 0:18 left in the game, Australia had a six point lead with the score sitting at 68–62 following a pair of missed free throws by Great Britain’s Joni Pollock. Great Britain was unable to stage a last minute comeback and Australia held on to win 70–64.

The Rollers and Great Britain are both bound for the London Paralympics next month.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005A team of Australian surgeons yesterday reattached both hands and one foot to 10-year-old Perth boy, Terry Vo, after a brick wall which collapsed during a game of basketball fell on him, severing the limbs. The wall gave way while Terry performed a slam-dunk, during a game at a friend’s birthday party.

The boy was today awake and smiling, still in some pain but in good spirits and expected to make a full recovery, according to plastic surgeon, Mr Robert Love.

“What we have is parts that are very much alive so the reattached limbs are certainly pink, well perfused and are indeed moving,” Mr Love told reporters today.

“The fact that he is moving his fingers, and of course when he wakes up he will move both fingers and toes, is not a surprise,” Mr Love had said yesterday.

“The question is more the sensory return that he will get in the hand itself and the fine movements he will have in the fingers and the toes, and that will come with time, hopefully. We will assess that over the next 18 months to two years.

“I’m sure that he’ll enjoy a game of basketball in the future.”

The weight and force of the collapse, and the sharp brick edges, resulted in the three limbs being cut through about 7cm above the wrists and ankle.

Terry’s father Tan said of his only child, the injuries were terrible, “I was scared to look at him, a horrible thing.”

The hands and foot were placed in an ice-filled Esky and rushed to hospital with the boy, where three teams of medical experts were assembled, and he was given a blood transfusion after experiencing massive blood loss. Eight hours of complex micro-surgery on Saturday night were followed by a further two hours of skin grafts yesterday.

“What he will lose because it was such a large zone of traumatised skin and muscle and so on, he will lose some of the skin so he’ll certainly require lots of further surgery regardless of whether the skin survives,” said Mr Love said today.

The boy was kept unconscious under anaesthetic between the two procedures. In an interview yesterday, Mr Love explained why:

“He could have actually been woken up the next day. Because we were intending to take him back to theatre for a second look, to look at the traumatised skin flaps, to close more of his wounds and to do split skin grafting, it was felt the best thing to do would be to keep him stable and to keep him anaesthetised.”

Professor Wayne Morrison, director of the respected Bernard O’Brien Institute of Microsurgery and head of plastic and hand surgery at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, said he believed the operation to be a world first.

Friday, July 1, 2005

A section of the rail tunnel outside Gerrards Cross Station in Buckinghamshire collapsed at around 8 p.m. last night. No-one was injured. 20 metres of concrete tunnel and gravel collapsed onto the Chiltern to Marylebone line, closing the railway and causing much disruption.

The tunnel was created by the supermarket chain Tesco, who had filled in a railway cutting in order to build a supermarket above it. The project was unpopular both among the local community and the rail industry who felt the project put commercial gain before railway safety.

The accident came hours after another rail accident in East Yorkshire, where a train collided with a car at a level crossing, killing the driver of the car and injuring five train passengers.

Monday, February 27, 2006

Buffalo, New York —Wikinews was the first to tell you that the Elmwood Village Hotel development in Buffalo, New York was to undergo “significant changes”.

The Elmwood Village Hotel is a proposed project that would be placed at Elmwood and Forest Aves. in Buffalo. In order for the development to take place, at least five buildings that house both businesses and residents, must be demolished.

To confirm and to get more information about the changes, Wikinews interviewed Eva Hassett, Vice President of Savarino Construction Services Corporation, the development company in charge of building the hotel.

Wikinews: The hotel proposal is being redesigned. Could you comment on that? What changes are being made? Are they significant?

Eva Hassett: The hotel has been resized as a 72-room, four story building. This is 10% smaller in number of rooms and a full story lower. We are also redesigning the facades in a way that will minimize the mass – more of a vertical feeling than horizontal. Different materials, windows, details. The smaller size of the hotel also makes the number of on-site parking spaces more appropriate and hopefully represents less of a challenge to an already difficult parking situation.

WN: Will you still be going before the city’s planning board as scheduled on February 28? Same for the Common Council?

Hassett: We will be on the Planning Board agenda this Tuesday morning but I do not expect that the Board will vote on the item that morning. I think we will be mainly explaining the new design and hearing input/questions.

WN: Will there be anymore public meetings?

Hassett: We would be happy to do one more big public meeting. We will be talking to Forever Elmwood about that on Monday (February 27, 2006). We would like to see if there is support for the new design and we also want to honor the public’s request for another meeting. I am hopeful that meeting can take place the week of March 6th.

WN: Is Savarino considering Mr. Rocco Termini’s design/proposal? If no, do you (Savarino) support/oppose?

Hassett: We are hopeful that we can build the hotel as redesigned. We think it would be a great addition to the Elmwood Ave. area, a good way for out-of-towners to see what Buffalo offers and a big help to the businesses there.

WN: Are you considering more time for the community to make a judgment?

Hassett: As I mentioned above, we expect to have one more meeting to get public reaction to the new design, and I think the Planning Board may want an additional meeting to make their determination. We do however, have constraints that will limit the amount of extra time. We still think it is a great project for the City and Elmwood; and we still want it to be something that the community wants as well.

So far, the City of Buffalo’s City Planning Board is still scheduled to meet at 8:00 a.m. (Eastern) on February 28, 2006 followed by the Common Council meeting at 2:00 p.m. on the same day.

Images of the design are not yet available. “We are working on the renderings this weekend, but I will likely have some early in the week,” stated Hassett.