Climate Change May Increase Volcanic Eruptions

The rapid rise in sea levels could cause a dramatic increase in volcanic eruptions, according to a new study.

The study, published in the journal Geology, found that during periods of rapid climate change over the last million years, the rapid melting of continental glaciers and the resulting sea-level rise eventually increased volcanic eruptions as much as fold.
"Everybody knows that volcanoes have an impact on climate," said study co-author Marion Jegen, a geophysicist at Geomar in Germany. "What we found was just the opposite."
The findings were based only on natural changes in climate, so it's not clear whether human-caused climate change would have the same impact, Jegen said. And if it did, she added, the effect wouldn't be seen for centuries.
Volcanic changes
It's long been known that volcanism can dramatically alter the climate, often in cataclysmic ways. For instance, mass extinctions such as the one at the end of the Permian period may have been caused by continuous volcanic eruptions that cooled the climate and poisoned the atmosphere and the seas. [50 Amazing Volcano Facts]
But few people thought climate change could fuel volcanic eruptions before Jegen and her colleagues began looking at cores drilled from the oceans off of South and Central America. The sediments showed the last 1 million years of Earth's climatic history.
Every so often, shifts in Earth's orbit lead to rapid warming of the planet, massive melting of glaciers and a quick rise in sea levels. The team found that much more tephra, or layers of volcanic ash, appeared in the sediment cores after those periods. Some places, such as Costa Rica, saw five to 10 times as much volcanic activity during periods of glacial melting as at other times, Jegen told LiveScience.
To understand why that would be, the research team used a computer model and captured how those changes affected the pressures experienced at different places on the Earth's crust. The team found that when glaciers melt, they reduce the pressure on continents, while sea-level rise increases pressures on the ocean floor crust. In the computer model, the change in pressures on the Earth's crust seem to cause increases in volcanism.
In general, the speed of the transition from ice age to melting, rather than the total amount of melting, predicted how intensely the volcanic eruptions increased, she said.
The study doesn't address whether modern-day climate change would have any impact on the frequency of volcanic eruptions, though in theory it's possible, Jegen said.
But even if anthropogenic, or human-caused, climate change impacts volcanic eruptions, people wouldn't see the effect in this lifetime, because the volcanic activity doesn't occur immediately after the climate change, Jegen said.
"We predict there's a time lag of about 2,500 years," Jegen said. "So even if we change the climate, you wouldn't really expect anything to happen in the next few thousand years."

Nurses Fired for Refusing Flu Shot

An Indiana hospital has fired eight employees, including at least three veteran nurses, after they refused mandatory flu shots, stirring up controversy over which should come first: employee rights or patient safety. The hospital imposed mandatory vaccines, responding to rising concerns about the spread of influenza.

Ethel Hoover wore all black on her last day of work as a nurse in the critical care unit at Indiana University Health Goshen Hospital. She said she was in "mourning" because she would have been at the hospital 22 years in February, and she's only called out of work four or five times in her whole career , she said.
"This is my body. I have a right to refuse the flu vaccine," Hoover, 61, told ABCNews.com. "For 21 years, I have religiously not taken the flu vaccine, and now you're telling me that I believe in it."
More than 15,100 flu cases have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since Sept. 30, including 16 pediatric deaths. Indiana's flu activity level is considered high, according to the CDC, which last month announced that the flu season came a month earlier than usual.
Click here to read how flu has little to do with weather.
When Hoover first heard about the mandate, she said she didn't realize officials would take it so seriously. She said she filed two medical exemptions, a religious exemption and two appeals, but they were all denied. The Dec. 15 flu shot deadline came and went. Hoover's last day of employment was Dec. 21.
Fellow nurse Kacy Davis said she and her colleagues were "horrified" over Hoover's firing, calling her their "go-to" nurse and a "preceptor."
"It was a good place to work," Hoover said. "We've worked together all these years. We're like a family."
The hospital said in a statement that it implemented the mandate to promote patient safety based on recommendations from the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It announced the mandate in September. Of the hospital's 26,000 employees statewide, 95 percent complied. That means 1,300 employees did not comply, but only eight were fired.
"IU Health's top priority is the health and wellbeing of our patients," said hospital spokeswoman Whitney Ertel. "Participation in the annual Influenza Patient Safety Program is a condition of employment with IU Health for the health and safety of the patients that we serve, and is therefore required."
The CDC recommends flu shots for everyone older than six months of age. Dr. William Schaffner, chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., said hospital patients are especially vulnerable to flu complications because their bodies are already weakened.
"I cannot think of a reason for any health care professional to decline influenza immunization that's valid," said Schaffner, a former president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, adding that people with egg allergies may have to avoid the flu shot to prevent anaphylactic shock, but even that hurdle has been remedied. The Food and Drug Administration approved an egg-free vaccine in November.
Schaffner said invalid excuses to avoid the shot include being afraid of needles and simply promising to stay home when they're sick. Patients now have the option of a vaccine nasal spray if they want to avoid needles. And since flu victims become contagious before they start to feel sick, they can get patients sick even if they stay home when they have symptoms.
Over the last several years, hospitals have been moving toward mandatory vaccinations because many only have 60 percent vaccination rates, Schaffner said. He is leading an effort for a similar mandate at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Nurses in particular tend to be the most reluctant to get vaccinated among health care workers, Schaffner said, citing his opinion.
"There seems to be a persistent myth that you can get flu from a flu vaccine among nurses," he said. "They subject themselves to more influenza by not being immunized, and they certainly do not participate in putting patient safety first."
In October 2011, Vanderbilt broke the world record for number of vaccines administered in an eight-hour period in an event called Flulapalooza. From 6:50 a.m. to 2:50 p.m., they vaccinated 12,647 people. By that evening, more than 14,000 people had been vaccinated, and there were no severe adverse reactions, he said.
But still, Hoover's lawyer, Alan Phillips, says his client had the right to refuse her flu shot under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits religious discrimination of employees. Religion is legally broad under the First Amendment, so it could include any strongly held belief, he said, adding that the belief flu shots are bad should suffice.
"If your personal beliefs are religious in nature, then they are a protected belief," Phillips said.
Phillips, who is based out of North Carolina, has made a name for himself fighting for employees' rights to get out of mandated flu shots, but he has never needed to go to court. Although he usually handles a couple dozen health care workers per year, he had 150 this fall in 25 states.
Dr. Damon Raskin, an internist with his own practice in the Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles, said hospitals should mandate flu vaccines as a matter of public safety. The flu can lead to complications like pneumonia and death, said Raskin, who is also affiliated with the Cliffside Malibu Addiction Rehabilitation Center.
"I think if the health care worker has some problem with religious faith then perhaps during flu season, they shouldn't do that job," Raskin said, suggesting that the worker do something administrative instead during flu season. "It's not fair to the patient. The people who are most at risk are in the hospital."

New-generation pacemaker could be powered by the heart

     The same material that sparks barbecue lighters to flame may soon be used to power pacemakers with the beat of the human heart instead of batteries, say researchers at the University of Michigan.

A new generation of pacemakers, devices that regulate the human heartbeat via electrodes and current, could eventually rely on piezoelectric materials, which, when they vibrate, generate a small amount of electricity.
Graduate research fellow Amin Karami and Daniel Inman, chair of the university’s aerospace engineering department, hope to develop a pacemaker that uses a tiny piezoelectric piece to collect pulses of electricity each time the heart beats. A hundredth-of-an-inch slice of brownish material vibrating in a contraption at their busy testing lab, in a building usually devoted to aerospace engineering, has already demonstrated it can generate 18 microwatts of power, enough to run 18 pacemakers.
“We’ve proven that it’s definitely do-able,” said Karami.
Piezoelectricity was actually discovered in the late 19th century in France by the Curie brothers, one of whom was married to famed physicist Marie Curie. In basic terms, piezoelectric materials give off current when squeezed. For instance, the clicking noise heard when pulling the trigger on a handheld barbecue lighter, or pressing the button on a gas grill lighter, is the sound of shaking or squeezing a small piezoelectric plate inside. The small spark of electricity released in turn lights the gas. If successful, piezoelectric pacemakers could replace those run on lithium batteries which, like similar batteries that power cameras and watches, need replacing or recharging. Some last 10 years, while others require replacement several years sooner, said Dr. William Zoghbi, president of the American College of Cardiology. A piezoelectric power source doesn't require charging.
There are about 370,000 pacemaker procedures a year, according to the most recent data from the American Heart Association. About 3 million people worldwide use them, according to the American College of Cardiology.
Karami says that having a pacemaker that theoretically can last a lifetime will reduce the risk of  complicated surgeries. Also, the battery-less device is also not affected by strong magnetic fields, such as those generated by MRIs, another concern for people with pacemakers.
Dr. Zoghbi said while pacemakers have improved the last 25 years, including smaller sizes and increased complexities, breakthroughs in battery life are welcomed.
“Any innovation that goes to improving heart function in the technology or capturing some electricity and deploying it in different ways is an improvement,” Zoghbi said, “particularly if we improve the outcome of the patients.”
Inman noted the University of Michigan team has technical issues to resolve. First they want to figure out if piezoelectric pacemakers could be made smaller and lighter than current devices. Then they need to ensure the device could generate electricity through the complete range of heart beat "tones" – from a resting heart to an excited one, and if each could be converted to the proper current, Inman said.
Finally, they have to figure out where to place the device close enough to the heart to obtain the best output.
Beyond pacemakers, the small battery-less generator could be used to power heart defibrillators that are implanted in the heart and shock it back to life when it fails. They could also be used in many other implantable medical devices.
“Let’s just say there are a lot of things that we’re learning that are battery powered and implanted in the body,” Inman said.
Research on the pacemaker stems from Karami’s interest in “energy harvesting,” the science of collecting small amounts of electricity from ambient energy. For example, subtle vibrations from cars driving over a bridge can be turned into energy to power remote devices for road traffic. Or vibrations from an airplane wing that could be harvested into electricity to power sensors, which was Inman and Karami's original inspiration.
“I looked at that and wondered, 'How would you power medical devices?’ ” Karami said. “Then I looked down at my chest and thought, “Well, the heart is something that vibrates."

The Braves might not use ‘screaming savage’ on batting practice caps after all

BLS IllustrationA public-relations backlash against the Atlanta Braves reportedly has them reconsidering using the "screaming savage" Native American caricature on their batting practice caps for 2013.

Paul Lukas of ESPN's Uniwatch, which recently broke what should have been a fun story about new designs on batting practice caps across the major leagues, says he hears "through the grapevine" that the Braves might switch to a different design because of negative feedback:

If that happens, expect MLB to issue lots of revisionist-history talking points about how the Indian design was just “one option we were exploring” and that it was “in development but never finalized” and that the Braves simply “opted to go in another direction” or some such.

Don't believe it for a second, Lukas writes. The Braves, against all reason in this age, were actually going to put that logo back on their caps after a 24-year absence. As The Stew has pointed out in previous posts on this issue and related ones, there have been worse, more demeaning caricatures of Native Americans used in Major League Baseball. But that doesn't mean the Braves should go backward and use another logo simply because it has cleaner lines.
[Also: Wade Boggs has plans for 'Field of Dreams' site]

What's interesting to note about the discussion that followed last week when the "screaming savage" resurfaced: The arguments for the logo tended to be angrier than the ones against. These complainers were a loud class of folks seemingly ignorant — perhaps willfully so — of this country's genocidal history against Native Americans. They weren't racist (mind you), yet they wanted their racist logo (by golly) because "liberal political correctness" has run amok (!) and the First Amendment. And who were we to deprive them of their rights?
Others weren't so much racist as clueless. "I don't see what's so racist about that image. It looks dignified to me." OK, so I might have even been one of these people at one time. But then my critical thinking skills developed, and I started to see how savage imagery, even that it is wrapped up in a "more dignified" package, is still a caricature. And wrong.
There were other arguments: "I'm Irish and I don't complain about Notre Dame's 'Fighting' nickname or leprechaun logo." Well, I wouldn't complain either. Comparing the treatment of the Irish in America with that of — say — the Cherokee nation, does a disservice to any reasonable discussion.
Others complain that, to like the logo for the NHL's Blackhawks, while ripping — say — Chief Wahoo — is hypocritical. Perhaps so. But if you read this about how the Blackhawks came to be named and how their logo came into existence ... Or maybe that's still paradoxical, even hypocritical. That doesn't mean the reply should be "more, meaner caricatures."
The only reason to revive "the screaming savage" is because people would buy it. And there apparently some people who would. But the Braves don't need money that badly.
They don't need this logo, either. Not when the arguments in favor are empty.

Five new cars to buy in 2013

Here’s a fun fact: The retail price of Lamborghini’s first production vehicle, the 350 GT, cost $13,900 when it debuted in 1964. That’s equivalent to roughly $103,000 today–much less than the $442,000 Aventador LP700-4 Roadster we saw debut in Los Angeles last month. Talk about refining the brand.
If you’re not of the Lamborghini persuasion, there are plenty of other options for hot new things on the market in 2013. Here’s a quick primer on five of them. And fret not, my dear penny-pinchers–they all cost much less than the Lambo.

BMW M6 Gran Coupe
WHY IT’S HOT: A 4.4-liter turbo V8; 560 horsepower.
WHY IT’S NOT: Its two-tone look may not be for everyone. Not available in standard transmission.
UNNECESSARY BUT AWESOME: Golden brake calipers. Refined and ostentatious all at once; good inflation hedge.

Mercedes-Benz CLA45 AMG
WHY IT’S HOT: Sporty handling with sedan practicality.
WHY IT’S NOT: For now Mercedes has been tight-lipped about its performance specifications.
UNNECESSARY BUT AWESOME: Likely to be priced under $40,000, which would make it the $5 martini of luxury cars.Audi S8
WHY IT’S HOT: A big, plush sedan. Tons of gadgets.
WHY IT’S NOT: Too many dials and buttons required to operate all that stuff.
UNNECESSARY BUT AWESOME: Audi’s most powerful engine to date offers 520 horses and 0-60 mph in under 4 seconds.

Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 Roadster
WHY IT’S HOT: Razorback haunches plus 700 ponies.
WHY IT’S NOT: Loud, hot, rides low. But it’s a Lambo. Want something practical? Go buy a minivan.
UNNECESSARY BUT AWESOME: Did I mention 700 horsepower? Better start a speeding-ticket fund.

Bentley Continental GT Speed Convertible
WHY IT’S HOT: It’s the fastest Bentley ever.
WHY IT’S NOT: Tips the scales at 5,500 pounds–so in city driving you’ll get maybe 12mpg.
UNNECESSARY BUT AWESOME: A full dozen cylinders under the hood; polished carbon fiber everywhere else.