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POPSAmazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle
Amazon effectively acknowledged that the deletions were a bad idea. “We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances,” Mr. Herdener said. Customers whose books were deleted indicated that MobileReference, a digital publisher, had sold them. An e-mail message to SoundTells, the company that owns MobileReference, was not immediately returned. Digital books bought for the Kindle are sent to it over a wireless network. Amazon can also use that network to synchronize electronic books between devices — and apparently to make them vanish. An authorized digital edition of “1984” from its American publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, was still available on the Kindle store Friday night, but there was no such version of “Animal Farm.” People who bought the rescinded editions of the books reacted with indignation, while acknowledging the literary ironies involved. “Of all the books to recall,” said Charles Slat
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POPSThe Chinese way of transgenic rice The European discourse of playing God does not play well in Asia; it presupposes the God of Genesis, a creator with a plan, a garden, absolute control and a stable equilibrium of species. And in general the Apocalyptic vision of European political activism has not penetrated beyond small numbers of urban professionals in Asia, where grounds of objection to transgenics have to do with consumer preference and resistance to corporate globalization. China is the case that confounds the discourse; not , but Chinese scientists have been the drivers of transgenic research and development. China showed how public sector investments in transgenics could target specific problems in agriculture without signing away the farm. China is moving aggressively to boost biotechnological research, citing the awesome responsibility of ensuring enough food for its huge population. Anyone paying attention to China's melamine adventures and other product quality issues has
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POPSGive me back my kidney, or pay the consequences! There is neither ethical nor legal justification for demanding the kidney or compensation. An organ donation is a gift. We have specifically prohibited the selling of organs for just this reason. Ethically, we believe that the only acceptable reason for donating an organ to another person is altruism. You give the organ because you want the other person to get it. What happens after that is irrelevant. If you cannot sue to get your kidney back because you now have a medical need for it, you certainly do not have grounds to sue to get it back simply because you are angry with the recipient. This case is not about the commodification of organs, either. No only do we prohibit the selling of organs, but we hold both the donor and recipient harmless in the action. The donor cannot sue the recipient for the costs associated with the donation, and the recipient cannot sue the donor if the donor had an undiagnosed medical problem that was transmitted with the organ. Experts in both law
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POPSAt age 140, lobster to regain his freedom He said a lobster's age can be worked out from how much it weighs, with each pound (453.6 grams) counting for 7 to 10 years. Mr Valenti said it was not uncommon for lobsters to live for more than 100 years but it was rare for them to be caught because they were generally too big for the baskets. The group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said it found out that the old lobster was in the restaurant's tank when a diner called them. "We applaud the folks at City Crab and Seafood for their compassionate decision to allow this noble old-timer to live out his days in freedom and peace," said PETA's Ingrid Newkirk.
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POPSRetail tycoon gets kidney from hanged gangster: report Tan's mistress also confirmed to the newspaper that his organs were donated although she did not name the recipients. Mr Tang, 56, had been desperate for a kidney and had been on dialysis. Last September, he was sentenced to one day in prison and fined after pleading guilty to entering an illegal arrangement to purchase a kidney and to falsely declaring that the would-be donor, an Indonesian, was a distant relative. The Indonesian donor, Sulaiman Damanik, who came from a poor background, had agreed to sell his kidney for 150 million rupiah. He was also jailed for two weeks and fined last year. It was the city-state's first organ trading case. The high-profile case prompted the government to say it plans to amend its organ transplant law so that kidney donors can receive financial compensation. Under existing laws, it is illegal for donors to be given cash in return for giving up a kidney. - AFP
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POPSat Happy People Don’t Do “We looked at 8 to 10 activities that happy people engage in, and for each one, the people who did the activities more — visiting others, going to church, all those things — were more happy,” Dr. Robinson said. “TV was the one activity that showed a negative relationship. Unhappy people did it more, and happy people did it less.” But the researchers could not tell whether unhappy people watch more television or whether being glued to the set is what makes people unhappy. “I don’t know that turning off the TV will make you more happy,” Dr. Robinson said. Still, he said, the data show that people who spend the most time watching television are least happy in the long run. Since the major predictor of how much time is spent watching television is whether someone works or not, Dr. Robinson added, it’s possible that rising unemployment will lead to more TV time.
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POPSGuinea-Bissau President Survives Attack on Home The attack followed parliamentary elections held a week ago in the West African state which donors were hoping would restore stability to an impoverished country that has suffered a string of coups and uprisings since independence from Portugal in 1974. Foreign donors say the small cashew nut-exporting nation urgently needs political stability to be able to resist the threat of powerful Latin American cocaine cartels which have been using its territory to smuggle tonnes of drugs to Europe. Guinea-Bissau's national electoral commission announced on Friday that the former ruling PAIGC party, with whom Vieira has had a troubled relationship, had won a clear parliamentary majority in polls held on Nov. 16. But one opposition party leader with links to the military had rejected the results. "The situation is very serious," Omoregie said, adding an enquiry was underway into who was behind the attack. Witnesses said the front of Vieira's home in the Tchon de Pepel district of the
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POPSIndia Calling They came of age in the 1970s, when the “there” seemed paved with possibility and the “here” seemed paved with potholes. As a young trainee, my father felt frustrated in companies that awarded roles based on age, not achievement. He looked at his bosses, 20 years ahead of him in line, and concluded that he didn’t want to spend his life becoming them. My parents married in India and then embarked to America on a lonely, thrilling adventure. They learned together to drive, shop in malls, paint a house. They decided who and how to be. They kept reinventing themselves, discarding the invention, starting anew. My father became a management consultant, an entrepreneur, a human-resources executive, then a Ph.D. candidate. My mother began as a homemaker, learned ceramics, became a ceramics teacher and then the head of the art department at one of Washington’s best schools. It was extraordinary, and ordinary: This is what America did to people, what it always has done. My parents broug
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POPSNew Suspect in Sports Doping Is, No Joke, Viagra Viagra, or sildenafil citrate, was devised to treat pulmonary hypertension, or high blood pressure in arteries of the lungs. The drug works by suppressing an enzyme that controls blood flow, allowing the vessels to relax and widen. The same mechanism facilitates blood flow into the penis of impotent men. In the case of athletes, increased cardiac output and more efficient transport of oxygenated fuel to the muscles can enhance endurance. “Basically, it allows you to compete with a sea level, or near-sea level, aerobic capacity at altitude,” Kenneth W. Rundell, the director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Marywood, said of Viagra. Some experts are more skeptical. Anthony Butch, the director of the Olympic drug-testing lab at U.C.L.A., said it would be “extremely difficult, if not impossible” to prove that Viagra provided a competitive edge, given that the differences in performance would be slight and that athletes would probably take it in combination with other drugs. Sc
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POPSNepal's Buddha boy returns to jungle to meditate The followers believe he has been meditating without food and water since he was first spotted in the jungles of southern Nepal in 2005. Believers say he spent months without moving, sitting with his eyes closed beneath a tree. Buddhism, which has about 325 million followers, teaches that every soul is reincarnated after death in another bodily form. But several Buddhist scholars have been skeptical of the claims that Bamjan is a reincarnation of Siddhartha Gautama, who was born in southwestern Nepal roughly 2,500 years ago and became revered as the Buddha, or Enlightened One. Rakesh, a Buddhist scholar, told the Associated Press last week that being Buddha means the last birth and the highest level that can be achieved and there can be no reincarnation of Buddha, even though Buddhists believe in life after death.
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POPSBritish may ban 'happy hour' as drink deaths rise Given that it can take 15 to 20 years for liver disease to develop, the British Liver Trust warned that the figures suggested the problem would only get worse. "We're seeing a steep increase of deaths in people in their 20s and 30s," Trust spokeswoman Imogen Shillito said. "This indicates a big problem for many years to come." National statistics show a steady rise in the number of alcohol-related deaths that typically fell heavy drinkers in their 40s and 50s who have abused alcohol for decades. From 1991 to 2006, the number of such deaths more than doubled to 8,758. Alcohol-related deaths among people aged 25 to 29 were 40 percent higher in 2006 than the year before, Shillito said, citing national statistics. Shillito said low prices for alcohol had helped encourage drinking among British youths, noting "they can buy alcohol with their pocket money." The government plans to base its new alcohol policies, including possible new programs to help people reduce consumption,
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POPSPanda in China zoo bites student who wanted a hug "Yang Yang was so cute and I just wanted to cuddle him. I didn't expect he would attack," the 20-year-old student, surnamed Liu, said in a local hospital, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Liu underwent surgery Friday evening and was out of danger, but will remain in the hospital for several days, Xinhua said. Yang Yang, who was flown to Guilin last year from Sichuan province, was behaving normally on Saturday and did not seem to suffer any negative psychological effects, the park employee said. He said it was not clear whether the facility would add more signs around the enclosure or put more fences up. "We cannot make it like a prison. We already have signs up warning people not to climb in," he said. "There are no fences along roads but people know not to cross if there are cars. This is basic knowledge." Pandas, which generally have a public image as cute, gentle creatures, are nonetheless wild animals that can be violent when provoked or startled. Las
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POPSiPhone baffled by British accents A video demonstration of the Google Mobile App on the online giant's website shows an American engineer successfully asking for pictures of the Golden Gate as well as cinema timetables and temperature conversions. The website also includes a link to a video showing people with Irish, British and Chinese accents asking for relatively complicated searches, with apparent success. But British iPhone owners had less luck when speaking the word "iPhone" into the application - a Scottish user was offered a porn website after it mistook his search for "sex," the Telegraph reported. A user from Surrey, south of London, had his request mistaken for "Myspace" and "Einstein" was another option offered for "iPhone" spoken with a Kent accent, it said. The only British accent which correctly understood the request was for a user from Yorkshire, northern England, although he was also offered "bonfire." A Welsh accent gave the suggestions "gorillas" and "kitchen sink." "I've got a tra
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POPSThe Possibilities in Hypnosis, Where the Patient Has the Power Like many others whose knowledge of hypnotism comes from movies and stage shows, my husband and Mrs. Kanter misunderstood what hypnosis is all about. While in a hypnotic trance, you are neither unconscious nor asleep, but rather in a deeply relaxed state that renders the mind highly focused and ready to accept suggestions to help you accomplish your goals. Hypnosis has been mired in controversy for two centuries, and its benefits are often overstated. It does not help everyone who wants to quit smoking, for example; then again, neither do other kinds of treatments. And the patient’s attitude is critical. In the words of Brian Alman, a psychologist who practices hypnosis in San Diego, “The power of hypnosis actually resides in the patient and not in the doctor.” Roberta Temes, a clinical hypnotist in Scotch Plains, N.J., insists that hypnosis cannot make people do anything they don’t want to do. Hypnosis can succeed only in helping people make changes they desire, she said in a
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POPSStart-Up Teaches Math to Americans, Indian-Style “If you don’t get mathematics to the highest level you possibly can in high school, your career options shrink dramatically in the 21st century,” Mr. Compton said. “Our society basically tells girls they’re not good at math. I was determined that was not going to happen to my daughters.” Mr. Compton and Indian Math Online’s co-founder, Suresh Murthy, hired a team of math teachers and software developers in India to build the site and its curriculum. At first, the site was meant for their daughters, but soon friends started asking if they could use it and word gradually spread. It has lessons for students in grades one through 12 and offers several packages for $12.50 to $20 a month. Two-thirds of the students using it are children of Indian and Chinese immigrants. Mr. Murthy’s children are an example. “He grew up in India, and he worried about his daughters falling behind in the global competition to be educated for the 21st century,” Mr. Compton said. The site’s curriculum is
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POPSA Writer in a Living Novel Ms. Chute, 61, a wry, direct and earthy woman who favors bandannas, peasant skirts and stout hiking boots, works in their home, which is guarded by a sign that reads: “Woa. Visitors Turn Back.” Neither building is heated, except by wood stove, or has hot water. The compound’s sole toilet is a tin-roofed outhouse. The Chute home does have an industrial-size copying machine, however, and nearby she keeps her AK-47 rifle, which she likes because it has a gas piston that dampens recoil. “It’s very gentle, very soft,” she said. Ms. Chute, whose fourth novel, “The School on Heart’s Content Road,” comes out on Friday, had a surprise hit in the mid-’80s with her first book, “The Beans of Egypt, Maine,” about a hard-luck, occasionally incestuous clan that some critics compared to Faulkner’s Snopeses. “If it runs, a Bean will shoot it,” she wrote. “If it falls, a Bean will eat it.” The book’s empathy and precise observation derived, it turned out, from personal experience. Ms. Chute, who g
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POPSBacteria on the Move, Eating Their Fill Directed bacterial movement that is controlled in this way is known as chemotaxis, and has been observed in individual microbes as well as in colonies that organize into biofilms or other structures. Because M. xanthus uses chemotaxis-like pathways to move over its prey, the researchers call this behavior predataxis. (A video is at nytimes.com/science.) The swarming changed over time. When a lot of E. coli was available, the bacteria moved back and forth tightly; Dr. Kirby likened it to a vacuum cleaner moving repeatedly over a dirty spot. As the prey was consumed, the pattern lengthened and dissipated. Presumably the bacteria needed to release a lot of digestive enzymes at first, but less and less as time went on, he said. Further study of this kind of coordinated behavior may help in understanding certain diseases that involve motile bacteria, Dr. Kirby said, and in developing methods to clean up environmental contaminants using microbes.
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POPSAsking ‘Why Do Species Go Extinct?’ A. In 1978, I went to Hawaii, supposedly a tropical paradise. I am an enthusiastic birder, and I looked forward to getting into the lush forest to view the abundant flora and fauna the islands were famous for. Here you had this rich island chain, out in the midst of the Pacific, full of wondrous birds and plants — a place supposedly richer in natural diversity than even the Galápagos. I had brought with me field guides to the fauna and flora, all published in the early 1970s. Yet once in the Hawaiian forest, I had a shock: my books were listing species that were extinct — or about to become so. I was in the forest six days a week and I kept thinking, “If I give it enough time, I’ll certainly see most of the species still left.” But I saw very little. In fact, in Hawaii today, I’d say there are only about 10 remaining native land bird species, with another 10 clinging to survival. So suddenly this extinction business seemed very real. Whenever you’d meet biologists over coffee, th
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POPSMedical Student Burnout and the Challenge to Patient Care Even surgical residency, despite the relentlessly long hours, seemed so much closer to what I wanted to do. Some of my professors tried to “humanize” the process. They invited us to dinner in their homes, supported our extracurricular efforts to set up health screening clinics in low-income neighborhoods, and tried to make our basic science courses more relevant to working with patients. But sitting where I am now, as someone who teaches medical students and who loves helping others as a doctor, I can understand the challenge they faced. Given the fire hose of information medical students must learn in just four years, how does one ever gently take a sip? Despite my teachers’ efforts, I was about as miserable in medical school as I had ever been. I felt alone. Neither I nor my classmates could admit to failure, and the last thing I wanted to do was to let anyone but my closest friends know just how unhappy I was. Success in medical school was the first step to a future of helping
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POPSStretching: The Truth If you’re like most of us, you were taught the importance of warm-up exercises back in grade school, and you’ve likely continued with pretty much the same routine ever since. Science, however, has moved on. Researchers now believe that some of the more entrenched elements of many athletes’ warm-up regimens are not only a waste of time but actually bad for you. The old presumption that holding a stretch for 20 to 30 seconds — known as static stretching — primes muscles for a workout is dead wrong. It actually weakens them. In a recent study conducted at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, athletes generated less force from their leg muscles after static stretching than they did after not stretching at all. Other studies have found that this stretching decreases muscle strength by as much as 30 percent. Also, stretching one leg’s muscles can reduce strength in the other leg as well, probably because the central nervous system rebels against the movements. “There is a neuromuscular in
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