Mammography has been a standard screening device for breast cancer since the mid-1970s. And the practice is credited with a 30 percent decline in death, thanks to early detection and treatment.

Now, many doctors are urging women to get a 3-D mammogram, which produces a more detailed view of the breast. But there has not been a large-scale study to determine if the technology actually provides a better outcome — until now.

Women older than 50 are advised to get a mammogram every year or two to screen for breast cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women.

​Comparing mammograms

A new study funded by the National Cancer Institute will compare traditional mammograms with the 3-D version to determine if the newer, often pricier choice really improves early detection of tumors.

“It’s a new technology that has been FDA approved,” said Dr. Tova Koenigsberg of Montefiore Health Systems in New York. “But we don’t actually have studies that know whether in a large population 3-D actually helps.”

Koenigsberg heads the project at Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care, one of about 100 clinics participating in the five-year study. The clinics, spread across the United States, and a few in Canada, will soon enroll healthy women ages 45 to 74 who are planning to get a routine mammogram, including Sabitri Jaipersaud.

After a doctor found what turned out to be a benign abnormality in her breast, she became diligent about annual mammograms and felt joining the study was important.

“It immediately piqued my interest because I feel that all, all of us can benefit from this and for the future,” Jaipersaud said.

The women in the study will be randomly assigned to get either the regular mammogram or the 3-D version for five years. Most will be screened annually but post-menopausal women who don’t have certain cancer risk factors will be screened every other year.

A traditional mammogram takes an X-ray of the breast from top to bottom and side-to-side.

“In a 3-D mammogram,” Koenigsberg said, “the camera actually sweeps at an angle and allows us to see the breast at different angles and projections.”

Known pros, cons

Doctors know that there are pros and cons to 3-D mammography, said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.

“It might find disease that we need to find that two-dimensional does not,” Brawley said. “There’re potential cons in that it has a higher cost, higher amount of radiation, given every dose, every time a person has a test, as well as it may find a higher number of false positives.”

As for what type to choose, some insurers, including Medicare, cover the 3-D version, and a small number of states mandate coverage. Other insurers may require women to pay $50 to $100 more out of pocket.

After collecting the result of every scan, biopsy and cancer at the end of the study, researchers hope to provide certainty about how often women should get mammograms, and which women would benefit most from which type.
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From: MeNeedIt

A Congolese fashion designer is promoting safe sex with a collection of clothes made of condoms that she hopes will help combat HIV/AIDS in the central African country.

Felicite Luwungu started making her condom line, which includes strapless evening gowns and tops, after the HIV/AIDS epidemic hit close to home.

“I have lost loved ones to HIV – that’s what inspired me to do this,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from the capital, Kinshasa. “The message that I hope people will apply is to be prudent.”

The number of people living with HIV/AIDS and dying from related infections in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been falling for more than a decade, according to the United Nations.

The prevalence rate of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is about 0.7 percent, among the lowest in southern and central Africa, UNAIDS data shows.

Luwungu, 40, displays her work in runway shows and exhibitions. When she finishes the condom collection, she plans to present it at a large fashion show next year.

The designs have shocked audiences but responses have been mostly positive, Luwungu said.

“People make jokes but it doesn’t discourage me,” she said. “That only pushes me to do this more.”
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From: MeNeedIt

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could launch a public debate about climate change as soon as January, administrator Scott Pruitt said on Thursday, as the agency continued to unwind Obama-era initiatives to fight global warming.

The agency had been working over the last several months to set up a “red team, blue team” debate on the science relating to manmade climate change to give the public a “real-time review of questions and answers around this issue of CO2,” Pruitt said.

“We may be able to get there as early as January next year,” he told the House energy and commerce committee during his first Congressional hearing since taking office.

Pruitt, others cast doubt

Pruitt and other senior members of President Donald Trump’s administration have repeatedly cast doubt on the scientific consensus that carbon dioxide (CO2) from human consumption of fossil fuels is driving climate change, triggering rising sea levels, droughts, and more frequent, powerful storms.

In June, Trump pulled the United States out of a global pact to fight climate change, saying the deal was too costly to the U.S. economy and would hurt the oil drilling and coal mining industries.

Pruitt is reportedly vetting a list of scientists that have expressed doubts over climate change to take part in the upcoming debates, including some that have been recommended by conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation.

An EPA official did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the selection of scientists.

Skeptics pressure Pruitt

The debate would come as the EPA proposes to rescind the Clean Power Plan, former President Barack Obama’s main climate change regulation that was aimed at reducing carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

On Thursday, Pruitt said the agency plans to propose a “replacement” for the Obama-era rule. He previously only committed to considering a replacement.

But Pruitt has also been under pressure from conservative climate change skeptics in Congress to go further and upend the scientific finding that CO2 endangers human health, which underpins all carbon regulation.

‘Breach of process’

At the hearing, Pruitt said there was a “breach of process” under the Obama administration when it wrote its 2009 “endangerment finding” on CO2, because it cited the research of the United Nations climate science body.

“They took work from the U.N. IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) … and adopted that as the core of the finding,” Pruitt said.

He did not say whether he plans to try to undo the finding, which legal experts have said would be legally complex.

Pruitt told Reuters in July the debate could be televised.
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From: MeNeedIt

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science announced Wednesday that it has adopted its first code of conduct for its 8,427 members.

Film academy chief executive Dawn Hudson introduced the new rules to members in an email. In October, the academy broke with tradition and made Harvey Weinstein just the second person ever expelled from the Oscars’ governing body.

The new code of conduct stipulates that the academy is no place for “people who abuse their status, power or influence in a manner that violates standards of decency.”

The academy’s board may now suspend or expel those who violate the code of conduct or who “compromise the integrity” of the academy.

The standards of conduct were drafted by a task force launched by the academy in October. It was formed after Weinstein was accused by dozens of women of sexual harassment and abuse.  Weinstein, who won an Academy Award for 1998’s “Shakespeare in Love,” has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex.

Hudson told members that more details on the process by which offending members will be judged will be announced later.
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From: MeNeedIt

A federal judge in Michigan has sentenced a former high-level Volkswagen manager to seven years in prison for his part in the scheme to cheat emissions tests and defraud consumers.

Oliver Schmidt has also been fined $400,000. He pleaded guilty in August to charges that included defrauding the United States and violating the Clean Air Act.

“This sentence reflects how seriously we take environmental crime,” Acting U.S. Attorney Daniel Lemisch said Wednesday. “Protecting national resources is a priority of this office. Corporations and individuals acting on behalf of corporations will be brought to justice for harming our environment.”

Schmidt was the general manager of Volkswagen’s U.S. Environment and Engineering office. He admitted knowing about and agreeing with engineers to carry out a scheme to install a device on certain VW diesel vehicles that would switch on for emissions tests, but switch off during normal driving.

Customers bought the cars believing they were environmentally friendly when in fact the cars were polluting as much as 30 times higher than U.S. standards.

Federal courts have ordered Volkswagen to spend more than $1 billion to buy back or repair the affected cars.
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From: MeNeedIt

China’s Ofo launched its dockless bicycles in Paris on Wednesday, becoming the fourth bike-sharing plan operator in a city set to banish all combustion-engine cars by 2030.

Ofo France general manager Laurent Kennel told Reuters the firm, one of two bike-sharing giants in China, had put just over 100 of its bright yellow bicycles on Paris roads on Wednesday and plans to ramp that up to 1,000 bikes by year-end.

Ofo comes hot on the wheels of Hong Kong-owned Gobee.bike, which launched in October and whose bright green bikes, estimated at a few thousand, can be seen on every Paris street.

A third Asian player, Singapore-owned oBike, has a few hundred bikes on Paris streets, and will also compete with the city’s long-established Velib plan.

Unlike the dockless Asian bikes, the Velib bikes must be parked in fixed docking stations of which there are some 1,800 in Paris, but which are often full in popular parts of the city.

“We want to be leader in free-floating bikes in Paris and France,” Kennel said.

He added that to cover Paris well, the firm plans to put several thousand bikes on the road, although there are no immediate plans to match Velib’s 24,000 bicycles.

Like Velib, the Ofo bikes have three gears – unlike the gearless Gobee and oBike bikes – but will be slightly more expensive at 0.50 euros ($0.6) per 20 minutes, compared to 0.50 euros for 30 minutes for the other two Asian operators.

Ofo’s bikes will be free for the first 40 minutes until the end of the year. Velib is free the first half hour for users with a subscription.

Kennel said Ofo operate more than 10 million bikes in 200 cities worldwide, the vast majority in China, and a few thousand in Europe, including in Milan, Madrid, Vienna, Prague, London and Cambridge.

Ofo, which has raised more than $1 billion from Chinese venture capitalists, including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., will cooperate with Paris city authorities, which have said they want to regulate the dockless bike plans to prevent chaos on Paris sidewalks.

The dockless bikes can be found and unlocked with a mobile phone app, and after use they can be left anywhere. So far there have been no pile-ups as have been seen on Chinese roads.

The new Asian bike share operators’ entry into the Paris market is well timed, as longtime Velib operator JCDecaux is replaced by the Smoovengo consortium, which won a 600-700 million euro ($700-$825 million) contract to run the Paris city bike-sharing system from 2018 to 2032.

Dozens of Velib docking stations have been out of order for weeks as Velib’s old docking stations are replaced with Smoovengo’s new stations.

The Paris city government is building more bike lanes as it tries to reduce automobile traffic in a bid to cut pollution.

($1 = 0.8486 euros)
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From: MeNeedIt

Unreleased songs recorded by Jimi Hendrix between 1968 and 1970 will be released next year.

Experience Hendrix and Legacy Recordings announced Wednesday that they will release Hendrix’s “Both Sides of the Sky” on March 9, 2018. The 13-track album includes 10 songs that have never been released.

Hendrix died in 1970 at age 27. The new album is the third volume in a trilogy from the guitar hero’s archive. “Valleys of Neptune” was released in 2010, followed by “People, Hell and Angels,” released in 2013.

Eddie Kramer, who worked as recording engineer on every Hendrix album made during the artist’s life, said in an interview that 1969 was “a very experimental year” for Hendrix, and that he was blown away as he worked on the new album.

“The first thing is you put the tape on and you listen to it and the hairs just stand up right on the back of your neck and you go, `Oh my God. This is too (expletive) incredible,” said Kramer. “It’s an incredible thing. Forty, 50 years later here we are and I’m listening to these tapes going, ‘Oh my God, that’s an amazing performance.”’

Many of the album’s tracks were recorded by Band of Gypsys, Hendrix’s trio with Buddy Miles and Billy Cox. Stephen Stills appears on two songs: “$20 Fine” and “Woodstock.”

“It sounds like Crosby, Stills & Nash except it’s on acid, you know,” Kramer, laughing, said of “$20 Fine.”

“Jimi is just rocking it,” he added. “It’s an amazing thing.”

Johnny Winter appears on “Things I Used to Do”; original Jimi Hendrix Experience members Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding are featured on “Hear My Train A Comin”’; and Lonnie Youngblood is on “Georgia Blues.”

Kramer produced the album alongside John McDermott and Janie Hendrix, the legend’s sister and president of Experience Hendrix. Kramer said though “Both Sides of the Sky” is the last of the trilogy, someone could find new Hendrix music in an attic or a basement, which could be re-worked.

He also said they have live footage of Hendrix, some just audio and some in video, which they plan to release.

“It was amazing just to watch him in the studio or live. The brain kicks off the thought process — it goes through his brain through his heart and through his hands and onto the guitar, and it’s a seamless process,” Kramer said. “It’s like a lead guitar and a rhythm guitar at the same time, and it’s scary. There’s never been another Jimi Hendrix, at least in my mind.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Astronomers have discovered a super-size black hole that harks back to almost the dawn of creation.

It’s farther away from Earth than any other black hole yet found.

A team led by the Carnegie Observatories’ Eduardo Banados reported in the journal Nature on Wednesday that the black hole lies in a quasar dating to 690 million years after the Big Bang. That means the light from this quasar has been traveling our way for more than 13 billion years.

Banados said the quasar provides a unique baby picture of the universe, when it was just 5 percent of its current age.

It would be like seeing photos of a 50-year-old man when he was 2½ years old, according to Banados.

“This discovery opens up an exciting new window to understand the early universe,” he said in an email from Pasadena, California.

Quasars are incredibly bright objects deep in the cosmos, powered by black holes devouring everything around them. That makes them perfect candidates for unraveling the mysteries of the earliest cosmic times. 

The black hole in this newest, most distant quasar is 800 million times the mass of our sun.

Much bigger black holes are out there, but none as far away — at least among those found so far. These larger black holes have had more time to grow in the hearts of galaxies since the Big Bang, compared with the young one just observed.

“The new quasar is itself one of the first galaxies, and yet it already harbors a behemoth black hole as massive as others in the present-day universe,” co-author Xiaohui Fan of the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory said in a statement.

Around the time of this newest quasar, the universe was emerging from a so-called Dark Ages. Stars and galaxies were first appearing and their radiation was ionizing the surrounding hydrogen gas to illuminate the cosmos.

Banados suspects there are more examples like this out there, between 20 and 100.

“The newfound quasar is so luminous and evolved that I would be surprised if this was the first quasar ever formed,” Banados said. “The universe is enormous, and searching for these very rare objects is like looking for the needle in the haystack.”

Only one other quasar has been found in this ultradistant category, despite extensive scanning. This newest quasar beats that previous record-holder by about 60 million years.

Still on the lookout, astronomers are uncertain how close they’ll get to the actual beginning of time, 13.8 billion years ago.

Banados and his team used Carnegie’s Magellan telescopes in Chile, supported by observatories in Hawaii, the American Southwest and the French Alps. 
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From: MeNeedIt

Gene therapy has freed 10 men from nearly all symptoms of hemophilia for a year so far, in a study that fuels hopes that a one-time treatment can give long-lasting help and perhaps even cure the blood disease.

Hemophilia almost always strikes males and is caused by the lack of a gene that makes a protein needed for blood to clot. Small cuts or bruises can be life-threatening, and many people need treatments once or more a week to prevent serious bleeding.

The therapy supplies the missing gene, using a virus that’s been modified so it won’t cause illness but ferries the DNA instructions to liver cells, which use them to make the clotting factor. The treatment is given through an IV.

Hope of a one-time treatment

In a study published Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine, all 10 men given the therapy now make clotting factor in the normal range. Bleeding episodes were reduced from about one a month before gene therapy to less than one a year. Nine of the 10 no longer need clotting factor treatments, and the 10th needs far fewer of them. There were no serious side effects.

Follow-up is still short, a year on average. Some cells with the new gene might not pass it on as they divide, so the benefits may wane over time, but they’ve lasted eight years in other tests in people and up to 12 years so far in dogs.

“The hope is that this would be a one-time treatment” to fix the problem, said the study leader, Dr. Lindsey George of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. 

Spark Therapeutics, the Cambridge, Massachusetts, company that makes the treatment, and Pfizer, which now is working with Spark on it, paid for the study, and some of the study leaders work for or have stock in Spark.

Dr. Matthew Porteus of Stanford University, who wrote a commentary in the journal, called the results striking and said, “I think we’re definitely on the road” to a cure. 

‘It’s pretty magical’

It feels like one to Canadians Jay and Bill Konduras, brothers who live an hour’s drive outside Toronto who were in the study.

“It’s pretty magical,” said Jay Konduras, 53, who runs a bakery and was treated in June 2016. 

“Life-changing,” said Bill Konduras, 58, a machinist treated in March.

Before, even small amounts of exertion would cause tiny muscle tears and bleeding problems requiring clotting factor treatment.

“Even something as innocuous as reaching over your head to get something out of a closet, or reaching down to tie a shoe” could trigger trouble, Bill Konduras said.

Six years ago, he nearly lost his leg after a motorcycle crash tore open an artery; he spent nearly a month in the hospital. Since the gene therapy, neither brother has needed clotting factor treatment.

Costs are unknown

The therapy is still experimental and its eventual cost is unknown, but clotting factor treatment costs about $200,000 per patient per year, Porteus said.

Another gene therapy, from BioMarin Pharmaceutical for a different form of hemophilia, also showed promise in a different study. Thirteen patients have been treated and have had a big drop in bleeding episodes and clotting factor treatments, study leaders report. One-year results will be given at an American Society of Hematology conference that starts Saturday.

Other companies are working on hemophilia treatments; Sangamo Therapeutics is testing traditional gene therapy and gene editing approaches.
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From: MeNeedIt

Johnny Hallyday, France’s biggest rock star for more than half a century and an icon who packed sports stadiums and all but lit up the Eiffel Tower with his pumping pelvis and high-voltage tunes, has died. He was 74.

President Emmanuel Macron announced his death in a statement early Wednesday, saying “he brought a part of America into our national pantheon.” Macron’s office said the president spoke with Hallyday’s family but did not provide details about where the rocker died or the circumstances.

Hallyday had had lung cancer and repeated health scares in recent years that dominated national news, yet he continued performing as recently as this summer.

Celine Dion was among stars sharing condolences for a rocker with a famously gravelly voice who sold more than 100 million records, filled concert halls and split his time between Los Angeles and Paris.

Hallyday fashioned his glitzy stage aura from Elvis Presley, drew musical inspiration from Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly, performed with Jimi Hendrix, and made an album in country music’s capital, Nashville, Tennessee.

His stardom largely ended at the French-speaking world, yet in France itself, he was an institution, with a postage stamp in his honor. He was the country’s top rock `n’ roll star through more than five decades and eight presidents, and it was no exaggeration when Macron wrote “the whole country is in mourning.”

“We all have something of Johnny Hallyday in us,” Macron said, praising “a sincerity and authenticity that kept alive the flame that he ignited in the public’s heart.”

The antithesis of a French hero right down to his Elvis-style glitter and un-French name, Hallyday was among the most familiar faces and voices in France, which knew him simply as Johnny, pronounced with a slight French accent and beloved across generations.

He released his last album “Rester Vivant” — or “Staying Alive” — last year, and performed this summer as part of the “Old Crooks” tour with long-time friends and veteran French musicians Eddy Mitchell and Jacques Dutronc.

Former President Nicolas Sarkozy, as mayor of the rich enclave of Neuilly-sur-Seine on the western edge of Paris, presided in 1996 over the entertainer’s marriage to his fourth wife, Laeticia.

“For each of us, he means something personal. Memories, happy moments, songs and music,” Sarkozy said in 2009, days after Hallyday, then 66, was hospitalized in Los Angeles. Sarkozy called the Hallyday family during an EU summit and gave updates on the singer’s condition during news conferences.

The health problems came amid a national tour that included a Bastille Day mega-concert July 14 at the Eiffel Tower with spectacular fireworks.

Hallyday sang some songs in English, including “Hot Legs” and “House of the Rising Sun,” — the melody of which was also used for one of his most famous songs, the 1964 “Le Penitencier.”

And there was a real American connection: American singer Lee Ketchman gave him his first electric guitar. Hallyday’s stardom, however, was not inevitable.

He was born in Paris on June 15, 1943, during the dark days of World War II with a less glamorous name, Jean-Philippe Smet. His parents had separated by the end of the year. The young Smet followed his father’s sisters to London, where he met Ketchman.

Hallyday gave his first professional concert in 1960, under the name Johnny, and put out his first album a year later. By 1962, he had met the woman who would be his wife for years, and remained his friend to the end, singing star Sylvie Vartan. That year, he also made an album in Nashville, Tennessee, and rubbed shoulders with American singing greats.

He quickly became a favorite of young people during the “Ye-ye” period, the golden years of French pop music. A respected musician, Hallyday played with Jimmy Hendrix during the 1960s and once recorded a song with Led Zeppelin founder Jimmy Page.

With his square-jawed good looks and piercing blue eyes, Hallyday was often sought-out for the cinema, playing in French director Jean-Luc Godard’s “Detective” (1984) and with other illustrious directors including Costa-Gavras.

Hallyday appeared in Johnnie To’s “Vengeance” (2009) and had talked about giving film a bigger role in his life.

However, it was the rocker’s personal life, and his marriage to Laeticia, that gave him a mellow edge. He spoke lovingly of daughters Jade and Joy, who were adopted from Vietnam.

“I’m not a star. I’m just a simple man,” he said in a 2006 interview on France 3.

Hallyday is also survived by two other children, Dave, a singer fathered with Vartan, and Laura Smet, whom he had with noted French actress Nathalie Baye.

Memorial plans weren’t immediately announced.
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From: MeNeedIt

Russia says it needs to carefully analyze a decision by the International Olympic Committee to ban Russia from competing as a country in the upcoming Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, before taking any measures.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday that the priority right now is on protecting the interests of Russian athletes.

The IOC ruled Tuesday that individual Russians could still compete as an “Olympic Athletes from Russia.”

WATCH: Russia Olympics ban

The long-awaited IOC decision punishing Russia for a state-sponsored doping campaign during the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, came little more than two months before the quadrennial skiing, skating and sledding contests unfold at venues in the mountains and along the coast of South Korea.

In addition to the 2018 ban for Russia’s representation as a country, the IOC fined the Russian Olympic Committee $15 million and suspended its president, Alexander Zhukov, as an IOC member.

Zhukov told the French news agency AFP he “apologized” to the IOC on Tuesday for the “anti-doping violations” committed in his country in recent years.

‘Russian athletes’

He said including the word “Russia” in the team name was a key issue. “They’ll be called Russian athletes and not some kind of neutrals … that’s very important,” he added.

The games will not be broadcast in the country because of the absence of a Russian national team. Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously said that it would be humiliating for his country to compete without national symbols.

Russia could refuse the offer to let its athletes compete without national identity or the playing of the Russian national anthem.

But IOC President Thomas Bach said, “An Olympic boycott has never achieved anything. Secondly, I don’t see any reason for a boycott by the Russian athletes because we allow the clean athletes there to participate.”

However, Pyotr Tolstoy, deputy speaker of the State Duma, the Russian parliament’s lower house, has called for a boycott. “They are humiliating the whole of Russia through the absence of its flag and anthem,” he said in televised remarks.

Alexander Zubkov, president of Russia’s Bobsleigh Federation, told Russian TV that the IOC decision was a “humiliation. … a punch in the stomach.”

Alexei Kravtsov, president of the Russian Skating Union, said: “The decision is offensive, insulting and completely unjustified. … I consider that this decision will deal a great blow to the whole Olympic movement.”

Stripped of medals

The IOC has already stripped Russia of 11 medals from the Sochi Olympics and banned more than 20 Russian athletes for life.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport said Wednesday it had received appeals from 22 Russian athletes over the bans, and that they asked for the CAS to rule before the Pyeongchang games begin.

Russia has repeatedly denied it carried out a doping operation. It blames Grigory Rodchenkov, the former director of Moscow and Sochi testing laboratories, as a rogue employee.

The scientist is now living under federal protection in the United States.

His lawyer, Jim Walden, told reporters Tuesday, “Today’s decision sends a powerful message that the IOC has joined the world community in saying that Russia’s cheating needs to be severely sanctioned.” But, Walden said Rodchenkov remains fearful for his friends and family who are still in Russia.

In addition to the 2018 ban for Russia’s representation as a country, the IOC fined the Russian Olympic Committee $15 million and suspended its president, Alexander Zhukov, as an IOC member.

Nations in the past have been banned from previous Olympics, most notably South Africa during the years it enforced its racially discriminatory apartheid system of government. But no blanket ban of a country has been carried out before because of doping, chemicals athletes have injected to give them an edge against competitors.
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From: MeNeedIt

Fueling the increase in opioid addiction and overdoses in the U.S. is a little known synthetic opioid called fentanyl. In this segment of the series “State of Emergency – America’s Opioid Crisis,” we take a look at what the introduction of fentanyl into the drug supply has done to the community of Louisville, Kentucky. Jeff Swicord reports.
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From: MeNeedIt