- The ongoing scandal surround the conditioning practices of the University of Iowa football team is the news gift that keeps on giving. Well, it’s not so pleasant for those directly involved, especially the 13 Iowa players still recovering from bad cases of rhabdomyolysis, which causes muscle tissue to be released into the bloodstream and can cause kidney damage. But for everyone else, it’s a chance to be amazed, astounded, bewildered and infuriated by the stupidity, insensitivity and lack of control exercised by the coaches who presided over the über-strenuous workouts that led to the hospitalization of those 13 players with a potentially life-threatening muscle condition that can lead to kidney failure, among other problems. However, the stupidity and lack of control doesn’t stop there. It continues with the fine employees of the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics who have been either fined or given unpaid five-day suspensions after an investigation confirmed they inappropriately breached the medical records of hospitalized football players. Three employees were fired for their misconduct and two others were given unpaid five-day suspensions, a hospital spokesman said Thursday. UI spokesman Tom Moore explained that the decision "is an indication of our commitment to patient privacy." Life could become much worse for the five disciplined employees, as Moore confirmed that the breaches have been reported to federal regulators, who can choose whether to seek additional fines and jail time. The only good news for these idiots, for now anyway, is that the hospital will not release their names or positions. Of course, that sort of information tends to leak out eventually in any scandal because inevitably, someone around the fringes of whatever is going on has loose lips and can’t help but blab what they know. All of this comes after a one-week investigation in which the hospital probed the possibility that the privacy of the medical records of the 13 players may have been breached. No information was provided as to what the five offending employees did with the information they procured, but I’m guessing it was leaked to the media in some way because these five felt they could get some sort of benefit or thrill out of it. Hope that was worth it, losers…………
- Your neighborhood Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar may still charged bloated prices for relatively good food, but one Florida BW3 will soon be giving a little something back to its customers - assuming those customers are one of the select few Americans who currently drive electric cars. The BW3 on Formosa Gardens Boulevard in Kissimmee, Fla. now has an electric car charger in its parking lot. To launch its new feature, the restaurant has scheduled an event from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, featuring some of the new plug-in cars testing the charger. With more and more car makers rolling out new plug-in cars, they are bound to become increasingly common going forward. Still, there aren’t enough of them currently on the roads for the charger to get heavy usage just yet. Maybe there are more people driving their electric cars to Disney World than I realize and BW3 officials certainly seem jazzed about their new endeavor. "You know, we're all about that high technology, and this is just an extension," said Andrew Gross, president and CEO of Sunshine Restaurant Corp., which operates Buffalo Wild Wings' restaurants in the Central Florida. "It's another piece our guests can use: Watching the game, enjoying the food, and just charge up while you're doing it," said Gross. "It's something that takes a few hours. Spend it in the restaurant." In other words, come in, order a $9 appetizer, chase that with a $15 meal, cap it off with a $9 dessert and then you can go out and reap the benefits of the money you saved by using someone else’s voltage to charge your electric car. On a serious note, it is nice to see BW3 officials making good on promises to be on the cutting edge of technology and be environmentally friendly, so hopefully this charger gets plenty of usage……….
- If you’re currently bitching about the high price of bread, cereal or jelly at your local supermarket, it is officially time for you to take a giant step back from your grips, scan the world’s food landscape and realize that you’re not the only one suffering. According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, world food prices rose to an all-time high in January. The FAO's Food Price Index measures the cost of a basket of basic food supplies -- sugar, cereals, dairy, oils and fats and meat -- around the world to illustrate pricing trends facing the world’s population. In the most recent FAO report, the index rose by 3.4 percent in January -- the seventh monthly increase in a row -- to reach its highest level since records began in 1990. Considering how many people are trying to feed their families on pennies a day in Third World countries, let alone those struggling financially in more developed countries, skyrocketing foods prices are a huge problem. Prices went up across the board on items measured by the index, with increases in the cost of sugar, cereals, dairy and oils and fats last month. Only meat prices remained steady to stand as the lone moral victory of the index. FAO economist Abdolreza Abbassian offered little hope for the rising price trend to change, stating that high prices were likely to continue in the months ahead. Food prices are key factors in the multiple uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa, inspiring common people to take to the streets and demand the ouster of leaders who have been unable to curb the rising costs. "High food prices are of major concern especially for low-income food deficit countries that may face problems financing food imports, and for poor households which spend a large share of their income on food," Abbassian said. Analysts immediately pointed to the FAO index as a major cause for concern, claiming that if prices remain high, a massive global food crisis could be mere months away. To put the situation in perspective, people in developing countries spend up to 80 percent of their income on food. That leaves them with little money for proper clothing, education for their children or housing. One has to wonder, coincidentally, how so many Americans remain so very FAT even as the rest of the world struggles to get enough to eat……but I digress. At the World Economic Forum last week in Davos, Switzerland, the alarm bells over rising food prices were also sounded, but no revolutionary ideas on how to address the problem came out of the forum. For now, it appears that rioting and ousting your leader is the best solution if you’re unhappy with how much you have to pay just to put a simple meal on the table………
- New York Knicks fans, I have never been prouder of you than I am right now. Known as some of the best, most vocal and knowledgeable fans in all of basketball and a big part of the reason Madison Square Garden is known as the world’s most famous arena, New Yorkers took their game to a whole new level Wednesday night as their beloved Knicks hosted the Dallas Mavericks. Even though the resurgent Knickerbockers suffered a 16-point loss to the Mavs, Knicks fans chose not to pout or wallow in their misery. Instead, they turned that anger on truly horrible, 8-year-old female Canadian pop hack Justin Bieber, lustily booing Biebs when he was shown on the scoreboard Jumbotron. When Bieber’s face popped up on the screen, the arena erupted in a chorus of boos and while the TV commentators working the game tried to soft-shoe the booing by complimenting graced the overhead scoreboard. You can hear the reaction in the video below. The TV commentators praise New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist, who was sitting next to Bieber, for making conversation to take some of the heat off the floppy-haired musical hack, there was no denying that a significant chunk of the crowd expressed its loathing of the ultimate flavor of the month and someone whose 15 minutes of fame should just about be up by this point. Even having a young girl bawling feet from the scene of the disaster, overwhelmed by merely being that close to Bieber, wasn’t enough to minimalize the bile being sent his direction. For those who wish to characterize the booing as a typical Bronx cheer that so many athletes and celebrities have received…….MSG is in Manhattan. Also, this seemed like a genuine dislike for Biebs and all he stands for, so that’s what I’m going with. As a vocal hater of all Bieber’s music and musical existence stand for, I would like to salute Knicks fans for an impressive, impassioned and wonderful effort that others should strive to emulate…………
- Sometimes, science does more than just churn out pointless studies that “investigate” facts and topics that no one was actually disputing, questioning or wondering about. This is one of those times. Even the biggest scientific cynic cannot find a worthwhile gripe with scientists revealing that they have successfully tested artificial blood vessels grown in the laboratory. Obviously, any time you can provide replacement parts for the human body without having to procure them from someone who has passed away, that’s a good thing. Even if surgeons typically remove a vein from a patient's leg and use it to replace blocked arteries that feed the muscles of the heart in a heart bypass operation, having a ready, artificial blood vessel to use would both simplify the surgery and leave patients with one less scar to remember their difficult day by. And yes, a pharmaceutical company does stand to profit if the artificial blood vessels become part of regular surgeries. That company would be Humacyte, the North Carolina company. Humacyte co-founder
Shannon Dahl explained that the faux blood vessels are made by coating a biodegradable, plastic mesh tube with human or animal muscle cells. The cells then produce a protein structure shaped like the plastic tube, which dissolves, and the third step in the process is washing away the original muscle cells. "So that what we're left with - the bioengineered vein - is just the proteins that the cell secreted. This protein structure, the bioengineered vein, can be used in any human patient because the immunogenic part, the cells, have been removed," Dahl states. What makes the Humacyte blood vessels work where previous attempts at the same technology have failed is that its materials are considered immunogenic because the protein structure won't be recognized by the recipient as foreign material. Additionally, the artificial grafts have resisted bursting and tearing in lab tests. If they can replicate those results when used on an actual patient, then Humacyte has something. Thus far, the project’s research team has implanted artificial vessels into a number of animals, doing heart bypass and other procedures. From what I hear, none of the animals complained……okay, bad joke. But Alan Kypson, a surgeon at East Carolina University, performed some of the implants and had positive things to say about the procedures. "It looked very similar, almost identical to the way it looked a year prior," Kypson said of implanted grafts that were later reexamined. "It didn't show any evidence of dilating or enlarging or calcifying. And they were open, most importantly. They were patent, meaning there was no obstruction to blood flow in these bypasses." All in all, a hopeful development and proof that science can accomplish something of worth every now and then……….
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