Attorneys in the battle over California's same-sex marriage ban file briefs

SAN FRANCISCO -- Attorneys in the battle over California's same-sex marriage ban filed legal papers in federal court Friday on the California Supreme Court's ruling that the proposition's supporters could defend the measure in court.

The filings by supporters and opponents of the Proposition 8 comes after the California Supreme Court ruled last month that sponsors of the ballot initiative had the right to defend the measure in court even though the governor and attorney general have refused to do so.

Following the Nov. 17 ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in San Francisco asked both sides to file legal papers on the ruling and how it would impact the case.

In the filings Friday, lawyers for the coalition of religious and conservative groups who successfully campaigned for passage of the proposition, agreed with the ruling, while opponents disagreed, and said the higher court should dismiss the appeal.

Opponents of Proposition 8, including attorneys for Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier, a lesbian couple from Berkeley, said permitting backers of the proposition to appeal the ruling would disregard precedent, and that the higher court should dismiss the appeal.

If the panel accepts the Supreme Court's interpretation, it would clear the way for the appeals court to consider the merits of an appeal challenging a lower court ruling that overturned the ban.

Source: http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_19463503?source=rss

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Children with HIV in Asia resistant to AIDS drugs (Reuters)

HONG KONG (Reuters) ? Teenagers in Asia receiving treatment for HIV are showing early signs of osteoporosis and children as young as five are becoming resistant to AIDS drugs, an anti-AIDS group said on Thursday, urging more attention be given to young HIV patients.

The finding, made available on World AIDS Day, is a reminder that while more people in Asia now have access to basic AIDS drugs, improved medicines remain out of reach and patients -- both adults and children -- still suffer from inadequate care.

In Asia, some 160,000 children are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS. Of these, 57,000 require treatment but only 30,000 were receiving it as of the end of 2008, according to UNICEF.

Researchers at TREAT Asia found children as young as five were developing resistance to AIDS drugs and may soon require improved, more expensive medicines, which are not available for them yet.

"In our cohort, about 14 percent of the children have failed first-line drugs ... Some of the children who are already on second-line are under the age of five," Annette Sohn, director of TREAT Asia, told Reuters in a phone interview.

Poor adherence to the timing or frequency of taking AIDS drugs can result in resistance. But in Asia, resistance is also due to the lack of drug formulations for children.

"We all made some mistakes on how we managed patients with HIV in the beginning of the epidemic," Sohn said. "We used adult tablets. We had no pediatric formulations in our countries."

Sohn said health experts and drug providers need to find ways to make third-line, more powerful drugs available for children in poor countries. Such medications are available or subsidized in rich nations but very expensive and sometimes unavailable in developing countries.

"Unless we develop access to third-line drugs, we are going to find ourselves in a clinic room with a patient that there is nothing left and we have no other drug to give them."

A long-term study of 4,000 HIV patients under the age of 23 in Asia by TREAT Asia also showed that a high percentage of teenagers had low bone mineral density, a precursor of osteoporosis.

"We did a special X-ray on these teenagers who are about 16 years old and found that 15 percent of them had low bone mass," Sohn said.

"That is not normal. Kids are not supposed to have low bone mass when they're 16 years old and that's because of the effect of HIV on their bodies ... brain, bone, immune system."

Sohn, a pediatric specialist for children with HIV/AIDS, said this may also be due to toxic effects that some AIDS drugs, such as tenofovir, have on bones.

"It is not so much about avoiding one drug or another but being aware of these side effects, studying what drug doses will suppress the virus while not being toxic, having the resources to monitor the side effects, and having access to alternate drugs if they do arise."

The study covers Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia and India. TREAT Asia is a network of clinics, hospitals and research institutions working together to improve treatment access.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/aids/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111201/hl_nm/us_children_asia_drugs

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Fukushima Earthquake Moved Seafloor Half a Football Field

News | More Science

The massive shift, laterally and upward, caused the epic March 2011 tsunami

By Mark Fischetti ?| December 1, 2011

The March 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake that decimated Japan and its Fukushima nuclear reactors with a monster tsunami altered the seafloor off the country?s eastern coast much more than scientists had thought. Analysis released today in the journal Science indicates the ocean bed moved as much as 50 meters laterally and 16 meters vertically. The magnitude 9.0 quake occurred close to the nearby Japan Trench that runs north to south in the Pacific Ocean (dark blue line on the map below).

The trench exists because the oceanic Pacific Plate (dark blue on map below) is moving westward, hitting and bending down under the continental Okhotsk Plate (light blue) from which Japan rises (green, brown). This ?subduction? action creates tension within the tectonic plates, which is occasionally released in the form of earthquakes.

Although measurements from satellites and seismic ground sensors had indicated the Okhotsk Plate moved after the 9.0 temblor on March 11, the extent of the movement was not clear. Researchers at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology compared new seafloor maps made of the region this year with maps made in 1999 and were surprised by the extent of motion. For example, data along one transect (yellow marker, below) near the quake?s epicenter (black ?x? on the map) indicated that the Okhotsk plate moved 50 meters east-southeast toward the trench.

Comparison of depth data showed that the earthquake itself lifted the Okhotsk plate 10 meters where the plate dives deep toward the trench (yellow to purple color, at center, below). The plate?s lateral shift also caused it to tip up another four to six meters there. ?We think that the additional uplift contributed to the generation of the pulsating pattern of tsunami waves,? Toshiya Fujiwara, one of the lead researchers, wrote in an email.

So if the Okhotsk plate shifted 50 meters at the trench, what happened at Japan?s eastern shore? According to Fujiwara, data from various Japanese agencies and universities shows that the seafloor at the Tohoku shore moved 5 meters seaward. Offshore, the plate shifted from 15 to 31 meters in the same east-southeast direction, and close to the trench it moved 50 meters. The gradually increasing displacement suggests that the plate was actually stretched from the shore toward the trench, changing local stress patterns along the way. The many large aftershocks that occurred (red circles, below; yellow is the quake epicenter) are evidence of the stretching, Fujiwara noted.

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Map credits (top to bottom): Captain Blood and Wikimedia Atlas of the World (Japan and Asia); NOAA (plates); Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (trench map and horizontal displacement graphic); ZENRIN and Google Maps (aftershocks).

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Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=84d1643f6a3ba865ceb03f4f53fc9167

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Robert Weller: NATO Admits Deadly Attack On Pakistan Army

NATO has admitted it is "highly likely" it was responsible for an attack by warplanes and helicopters that killed dozens of Pakistan soldiers on an Afghan border post near Mohmand. Pakistan forces returned fire.

Reuters and Al Jazeera said the toll could reach or exceed 30. It was the deadliest attack on Pakistan forces by NATO since it invaded neighboring Afghanistan after 9/11.

"Pakistan's sovereignty was attacked early this morning," said Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. "This is our Pakistan and we have to defend it," told the Wall Street journal.
"Close air support was called in, in the development of the tactical situation, and it is what likely caused the Pakistan casualties," Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, a spokesman for NATO said. He apologized.

News reports said NATO forces were involved in an anti-Taliban operation in the Khyber region of northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border.

Relations between Islamabad have deteriorated as the war seems to drone on without end. And U.S. military and government officials have accused Pakistan of giving some of the ammunition and other aid it delivers to anti-Afghanistan government groups.

In some cases NATO forces allegedly were killed with these munitions.

Pakistan was outraged by the Navy Seal attack inside its territory that resulted in the execution of Osama bin Laden.

Afghan President has simultaneously criticized the U.S. for allegedly killing civilians not involved in the conflict.

In the U.S., support for the war has declined as casualties climb at the same time American commanders say they are winning. Intense pressure to cut government spending adds to the pressure to pull out of the graveyard of empires.

Pakistan, meanwhile, said it returned fire on the attack early Saturday. There was no information on NATO suffered casualties.

"Pakistani troops effectively responded immediately in self-defense to NATO's aggress with all available weapons," its military said in a statement.

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Follow Robert Weller on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mozart99

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-weller/nato-pakistan-border-attack_b_1114112.html

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This Year, Give Them Brains

Advances | More Science See Inside

Each year we poll scientists and educators on ideas for books, puzzles and toys that foster inquiry. This season's picks range from a top that never stops spinning to a build-it-yourself skull.

By Anna Kuchment ?| November 25, 2011?|

Image: Photograph by Lucas Zarebinski

1. Your Body puzzle
$24.95 at fatbraintoys.com; ages 4 and up
A five-layer birch puzzle lets kids peer inside the human body, revealing the digestive tract, nerves and skeleton. Katy Shepard, a Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience at Emory University, says her three-year-old cousin received this puzzle after he pointed to his skin and asked, ?What comes next??

2. Life Cycle Stacking Blocks
$19.95 at forsmallhands.com; ages 2 to 6
Paperboard boxes that stack nearly three feet high and feature beautiful illustrations of the life cycles of the butterfly and frog are accompanied by an informative poem, says Julie Frey, a fifth grade teacher at Stuard Elementary School in Aledo, Tex.

3. Skull puzzle
$23 at theevolutionstore.com; ages 8 and up
This 39-piece 3-D puzzle comes with a removable brain. ?This puzzle is educational, challenging and, most important, fun,? says Kent Kirshenbaum, a chemistry professor at New York University. ?Bonus: the jaw swings open and shut hauntingly after you complete it.?

4. Bones: Skeletons and How They Work
by Steve Jenkins (Scholastic, 2010); ages 7 and up
Michelle Nijhuis, a biologist and author, recommended this book and the two following ones. (For more of her suggestions, go to lastwordonnothing.com.) Bones, she writes, has fantastic illustrations and ?is also great for inspiring hands-on research.?

5. Far from Shore: Chronicles of an Open Ocean Voyage
by Sophie Webb (Houghton Mifflin, 2011); ages 9 to 12
This book chronicles the author?s four-month-long Pacific research voyage. ?Webb describes her work in some depth, but she emphasizes not the results but the experience: the starlit nights on deck, the sightings of dolphins and whales and seabirds, and daily life with her fellow scientists,? Nijhuis writes.

6. Tuesday
by David Wiesner (Clarion, 1997); ages 5 to 8
?Late one Tuesday evening a mob of frogs flies through town on lily pads, disappearing as quickly as it came. Why? This almost wordless story doesn?t say, leaving kids free to form their own theories about spontaneous frog flight,? Nijhuis says.

7. Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be
by Daniel Loxton (2010); $18.95 at kidscanpress.com; ages 8 to 13
Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, touts this book as ?an excellent introduction to a topic not frequently covered in children?s books. There?s more to evolution than dinosaurs, after all!?

8. Magic Briks bristle blocks
$26.95 at kaplanco.com; ages 3 and up
Never underestimate simple building blocks. Noah Cowan, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University?s Whiting School of Engineering, says they are ?an essential component in developing a child?s ability to reason about space, time and even challenging concepts like entropy. Bristle blocks are particularly good for young children who don?t yet have the dexterity for Legos?and, frankly, bristle blocks are even more open-ended because the connector density is higher.?

9. Shark in a Jar?Squalus acanthias
$29 at theevolutionstore.com
This real baby shark taken from an adult caught by a commercial fisher ?offers a launching point for discussions about the differences between sharks and bony fish, the diverse ways sharks bear their young, and the importance of conservation for threatened shark species,? N.Y.U.?s Kirshenbaum says.

10. Science kits
from Thames & Kosmos
From $13.95 at thamesandkosmos.com; ages 5 and up
Christof Koch, a professor of cognitive and behavioral biology at the California Institute of Technology, grew up playing with these designer sets, many made by a 189-year-old German company. ?These days kids see computer simulations and watch YouTube but don?t do that much with their own hands anymore,? he says. More than 60 different kits are available for various ages and specialties?from chemistry and biology to energy and forensics.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=37b7d8ae2a2d5191976789525a4bd7a8

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