FAILING HEALTH

The United States isn’t making the grade when it comes to women’s health, contents a report released by the National Women’s Law Center and Oregon Health and Science University. The report gives the country an overall grade of “unsatisfactory” because it meets only three of 27 benchmarks for women’s health. Those benchmarks are the percentage of women aged 40 and over who get regular mammograms; the percentage of women who visit their dentist annually; and the percentage of women aged 50 and over who are screened for colorectal cancer.

Not one state received an overall “satisfactory” grade in the area of women’s health. Three states — Massachusetts, Minnesota and Vermont — received “satisfactory minus” grades, down from eight states in 2004.

Eleven states, as well as the District of Columbia, received failing grades — Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia — double the number that failed in 2004. All other states received a rating of “unsatisfactory.”

— HealthDay News

DEADLIER THAN AIDS?

A dangerous germ that has been spreading around the country causes more life-threatening infections than public health authorities had thought and is killing more people in the United States each year than the AIDS virus, federal health officials reported. The microbe, a strain of a once innocuous staph bacterium that has become invulnerable to first-line antibiotics, is responsible for more than 94,000 serious infections and nearly 19,000 deaths each year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calculated. The estimate includes only the most serious infections caused by the germ, known as methicillinresistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). MRSA is a strain of the ubiquitous bacterium that usually causes staph infections that are easily treated with common antibiotics in the penicillin family, such as methicillin and amoxicillin. Resistant strains of the organism, however, have been increasingly turning up in hospitals and in small outbreaks outside of heath-care settings, such as among athletes, prison inmates and children.

— The Washington Post

SAFE AND STUNNED

Tasers and similar stun guns, increasingly popular among law enforcement agencies nationwide, are generally safe for police to use, according to new research. In what was called the first large independent study of injuries from Tasers, researchers reviewed 962 cases in six locations. Nearly all the cases they found resulted in no injuries or minor ones such as scrapes and bruises. In the cases reviewed for the study, two people died, but autopsies found neither death was related to use of a Taser. Three people were hospitalized after being zapped, two with injuries from falls. It was unclear whether a third hospitalization was related to the use of a stun gun, according to the researchers.

Taser use by police drew national attention recently after video circulated widely of police shocking a university student in Florida who persistently questioned Sen. John Kerry during a forum and refused to yield the microphone.

— The Associated Press

REALLY?!?!

“My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots.”

— David Levy, an artificial intelligence researcher reportedly awarded a doctorate from the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands after completing his thesis on “Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners”

MAYBE NOT SO LONG

It won’t make you dinner or rub your feet, but nearly one in four Americans say that the Internet can serve as a substitute for a significant other for some period of time, according to a new poll released by 463 Communications and Zogby International.

The Zogby/463 Internet Attitudes poll found that 24 percent of Americans said the Internet could serve as a replacement for a significant other. The percentage was highest among singles, of which 31 percent said it could be a substitute. There was also a split based on political ideology. Thirty-one percent of those who called themselves “progressives” were open-minded to the Internet serving as a surrogate significant other while only 18 percent of those who consider themselves “very conservative” would consider it a substitute.

— Press release from Zogby International

THE CA MID-YEAR INTERNET THREAT OUTLOOK REPORT by CA Inc.
A global team of malware researchers warns personal computer users of the growing and complex Internet threats, including targeted identity theft, software vulnerabilities and risks with online gaming. The short but sweet 15-page report is available online at www.ca.com/us/securityadvisor/newsinfo.

HOW FULL IS YOUR BUCKET by Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton.
The New York Times best seller takes 50 years of research and interviews and discusses how positive interactions in the workplace increase productivity and decrease turnover. Gallup Press.

LANDMARK SPEECHES OF THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT edited by Peter Schweizer and Wynton C. Hall.
This collection of essays tracks the thought, rhetoric and history of the conservative party. Texas A & M Press.

A WHITE HOUSE DIARY by Lady Bird Johnson.
The great first lady of Texas ’ account of her life in the Whitehouse is again available in paperback. University of Texas Press. WHAT MAKES A TERRORIST by Alan B. Krueger. The author argues that terrorism isn’t a result of the uneducated and impoverished and that terrorism cannot be defeated through aid and education. Princeton University Press.

BOOM! VOICES OF THE SIXTIES by Tom Brokaw.
The award-winning journalist creates a virtual reunion for the Class of 1968 as sources reflect on walking on the moon and Vietnam. Random House.

FRAUD: DECEIT AMONG SCIENTISTS, ACADEMICS, WRITERS AND PHILANTHROPISTS by Gerhard Falk.
A Sociology professor examines the temptations to commit fraud inside trusted professions. University Press. FOLKLORE IN MOTION: TEXAS TRAVEL LORE by Kenneth Untiedt. The Texas Folklore Society puts together a collection of essays from infamous storytellers including John O. West and Kenneth W. Davis. University of North Texas Press.

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