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McAbee: Colorado fashion faux pas fueled by fear of freezing
special to the daily
Batman has his bat-suit. Clark Kent wore his uniform both as the mild-mannered reporter and the superhero. Even if it's a tall tee and sneakers, we all follow a dress code.
If you meet someone new in Colorado, he is far more likely to be from outside of Colorado than locally grown. It's one of the great things about living here.
OK, it's not exactly the pioneer days, but Colorado is a young enough state that we, the current inhabitants, have much to say about what it will mean to be a Coloradan in 50 or 100 years. While I do not pretend to know just what that will look like, I have spotted a few fashion trends that I think we should let go the way of the horse-drawn wagon.
Men, this fashion faux pas is not without its roots. People who move here tend to rave about the laid back and friendly manner of the local inhabitants. Casual is king in Colorado.
Back East you can find families who can trace their name back to the passenger list of the Mayflower. A lot of their descendants have stayed put. They have their circle of friends and family and can remain satisfied within these groups. But in Colorado most of us lack the kind of heritage three or four generations can provide and can't afford to be parochial. In other words, where everyone is from somewhere else, the only reasonable way to establish crucial social bonds is by being friendly and casual.
However, it is one thing to shrug off pretentiousness with your hyper-casual dress. It is quite another to look the same wherever you go. Let me explain.
I'm sure that you have noticed other men trekking through town in Gore-Tex, hiking shoes, and when the weather turns colder, polar fleece and down. There's a war with nature on, boys. It's called winter and we're really combating the elements. For a couple of friends and me, the fashion stable, at least in the colder months was a big black down coat. When we all wore them the same night we called ourselves the "black puffy posse."
I am reluctant to place blame on a single person but if you are like me, when you first moved here someone probably told you "cotton kills".
This warning no doubt sent you to an outdoor retail establishment to reduce your risk of getting caught in a freak snowstorm wearing the wrong clothes and freezing to death in your own non-wicked hypothermia-inducing sweat. A helpful chap in the store who had lived in Colorado a total of two months longer than you had, explained that it is neither uncommon to see temperature swings of 50 degrees or more nor is it uncommon to encounter snow in any month of the year. His speech and others like it were and have been very effective, because I see a lot of fellows walking the streets of cities, suburbs and ski towns in some form of tech wear as if they were going to spontaneously climb a Fourteener.
This is not to say that some of these men didn't just get off a mountaineering expedition or the ski slopes. It is possible. After all, there are some uber athletes around Colorado. But if your life isn't that adventurous or is just part-time adventurous, then you might leave the ski coat in the closet unless you're skiing and for other occasions perhaps something a little more appropriate.
Women notice your feet. Women judge you by your shoes. If your shoes promise stability on the trail, well, keep it on the trail. Most athletic shoes are made in a country that still practices foot binding. Do yourself a favor, buy something leather, perhaps Italian and thank me later.
When the weather turns nasty, you don't have to go for a fabric made of out recycled soda bottles. Wool has been around for a long time. They make sweaters out of it. It even keeps you warm even if it gets wet. Play around with the idea. Have some fun with it fellows.
If you do decide on a winter ascent of the Crestone Needle you will still have the gear in your closet.
Jeff McAbee is a former Summit County resident now living on the Front Range. Contact him at email@example.com or via Twitter @Jeff_McAbee.
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Managing Diabetes During the Holidays
By: Donna Quirk, MBA, RD, LD
LMC Clinical Nutrition Manager
Today (November 14th) is World Diabetes Day, a day dedicated to diabetes education and prevention. The International Diabetes Federation works all year long to increase awareness about the ever growing health threat that diabetes poses worldwide.
It also strikes me that World Diabetes Day occurs every year right as many of us start celebrating the holidays.
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day are filled with fun and family … and food. Keeping blood sugars in check while enjoying the food and festivities can be a struggle. But as always, with a strategy and some planning you can do it! Here are some ideas:
- Roast winter vegetables to have as a side dish. Cube potatoes or sweet potatoes, turnips, acorn squash, red onion then add baby carrots and brussels sprouts. Toss with a combination of olive oil, apple butter, garlic powder, and pepper.
- Spread in a baking dish and roast until golden brown.
- Sprinkle pomegranates on turkey instead of cranberry sauce. Use pomegranates in any salad as well.
- Keep fresh fruit on the dessert table with yogurt for a dipping sauce.
- To save calories and carbohydrates, make fruit crisps instead of pies.
- Keep beverages calorie free or very low in calories.
- Exercise regularly through the holiday season!
Green Bean Casserole is Thanksgiving favorite. Here is an alternate recipe from this month's Today's Diet & Nutrition© magazine that saves the calories and fat from the cream soup and fried onions.
Green Beans With Crispy Topping
Serves 4
For the crispy topping
- 1⁄2 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 2 teaspoons chicken broth
- 1⁄8 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1⁄8 teaspoon onion powder
- Pinch red pepper flakes, optional
- 1⁄2 cup rice crisp cereal
For the beans
- 1 (12-ounce) bag green beans
- 3 tablespoons chicken broth, divided
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- Salt, to taste
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1⁄2 teaspoon dried thyme
In a small saucepan over medium heat, make crispy topping by melting the butter then adding the broth, garlic and onion powders, red pepper flakes (if using), and cereal, stirring to coat the cereal. Cook, stirring frequently, until cereal begins to brown and pan is dry, about 2 to 3 minutes. Set aside and let cool.
Wash and prep the beans, if necessary. In a saucepan over medium-high heat, heat 1 tablespoon of broth and the olive oil. Add beans and season with salt to taste. Stir occasionally.
When pan becomes dry, about 3 minutes, add the remaining 2 tablespoons of broth. Cook until beans are crisp-tender, about 3 to 5 minutes longer.
Meanwhile, melt the butter with the thyme in the microwave, about 30 seconds. Set aside.
When beans are done, remove pan from heat and toss beans with butter sauce. Place beans in a serving dish and garnish with the crispy topping.
Nutrient Analysis: Calories: 95; Total Fat: 6 g; Saturated Fat: 3 g; Polyunsaturated Fat: 0 g; Monounsaturated Fat: 2 g; Cholesterol: 11 mg; Sodium: 94 mg; Carbohydrates: 10 g; Fiber: 3 g; Protein: 2 g
Recipe by Jessica Girdwain © 2012 Today's Diet & Nutrition

subset: commoncrawl


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Anne Arundel County, Md., Fire Department
Maryland authorities on Tuesday showed off materials seized from the home of Todd Dwight Wheeler Jr. on New Year's Day.
A Maryland man was being held on $400,000 bond Tuesday after local, state and federal authorities discovered working bombs, more than 100 pounds of bomb-making chemicals and numerous manuals for creating bombs and booby traps in his home, police said.
The man, Todd Dwight Wheeler Jr., 28, of Glen Burnie, near Baltimore, was held on two counts of making explosives, two counts of possessing explosive materials and one single count of reckless endangerment. Federal charges were pending.
Anne Arundel County police said they had no idea what Wheeler might have been planning, because he's refusing to cooperate, but "what is clear is that these materials were capable of maiming, killing or injuring human beings," Anne Arundel County Fire Chief Michael Cox said at a news conference Tuesday.
The bombs, if exploded, would have a blast radius of more than 150 feet — big enough to "have taken out the house and the surrounding houses," said fire Capt. Robert Howarth, the lead investigator.
Anne Arundel County, Md., police
Todd Dwight Wheeler Jr. was held on two counts of manufacturing a destructive device, two counts of possessing a destructive device and one count of reckless endangerment.
Wheeler was arrested on New Year's Day after police were called to his address by a relative who was concerned that he might be suicidal, police said in a statement Tuesday. He appeared to have injuries consistent with those caused by a chemical reaction, they said.
The fire department and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were called in, and in the past week, they've been removing and cataloging all of the dangerous materials stashed in the suburban house, which they showed off to reporters Tuesday:
- Numerous completed bombs.
- More than 100 pounds of chemicals, including acids, fuels, oxidizers and explosives precursors.
- Glass jars labeled "ammonium chloride," sulfur" and "potassium chlorate."
- Additional components of destructive devices, including igniters and detonators.
- Instruction manuals and books detailing explosive manufacturing and booby traps, with titles like "The Poor Man's James Bond," "Booby Traps," "Deadly Brew" and "Highly Explosive Pyrotechnic Compositions."
- Miscellaneous weapons, including an automatic Ruger Mini-14 rifle, other guns and knives.
- Unspecified "controlled dangerous substances" and packaging materials.
"The potential damage to any of the homes in the vicinity the residence would have been extensive if any of the devices would have detonated," the fire department said.
Wheeler was scheduled for a preliminary hearing Jan. 29 in Anne Arundel County District Court.


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…Or should I say warping things up? 😉
It's hard to believe that it's only been four weeks since my little adventure with Mirrix first began. Time really does fly by. You know how when, if you're lucky, you meet someone for the first time and really hit it off? You quickly become fast friends, cherish the time spent and can't wait to see them again. Well that's how it is with my Mirrix loom. I probably shouldn't admit wanting to get up out of bed in the middle of the night -I do have insomnia- and start weaving, should I?


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Women have their own ideas about McMahon, Murphy
Hartford - Women are getting a lot of attention in this year's U.S. Senate race.
The Republican candidate, Linda McMahon, and the Democrat, Chris Murphy, have organized rival women's fan clubs and traveled the state engaging groups of women voters in casual small talk.
A "Women for Linda" rally in Norwalk last month drew a crowd of 300 with presentations by former Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell and two sitting female senators: Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
"Women for Murphy" supporters recently gathered outside the state Capitol to warn about McMahon's views on women's health care. They also scolded McMahon in the latest Murphy attack ad for having "demeaned" women during her tenure at WWE.
McMahon responded to those claims in a new ad of her own last week that asks Murphy to "take a look - I am a woman."
To assess this battle over the female vote, The Day recently interviewed more than two dozen southeastern Connecticut women - at restaurants, libraries, shopping centers and senior centers - to gauge their opinions on the two warring candidates.
The majority of the likely voters admitted to still being unfamiliar with Murphy, the 5th Congressional District representative now in his first statewide election. Several women described being introduced to him through McMahon's attack ads on his late rent and mortgage payments in the early and mid-2000s and on his congressional committee attendance record.
For many of those interviewed, the Nov. 6 election is essentially a referendum on Linda McMahon.
"I think she's a good businesswoman, and I want her to take that to Washington," said Denise Pierson, 51, of New London, a registered Democrat who is ready to break party lines for McMahon. "I think the country needs to be run more like a business and not welfare."
Most other registered Democrats who were interviewed felt differently.
"I can't stand her," said Libby Nye, 72, of New London, who considers the Greenwich multimillionaire indifferent to society's less well-off. "Look at her background and how she made her money and where she lives and what she owns."
Nancy Heard, 73, of East Lyme was also turned off by McMahon's wealth, which has allowed her to pour more than $65 million combined into this race and her unsuccessful Senate bid two years ago.
"The rich get richer and the poor get poorer," Heard said.
Although McMahon would be Connecticut's first female U.S. senator, her 2010 run was largely undone by the women's vote.
A Quinnipiac University poll released just before that election showed McMahon with a small, 4-point lead among men against then-state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, but trailing him by a staggering 25 points among women.
McMahon lost the election by 12 percentage points.
Degrading portrayals of women?
Then as now, state Democrats are attempting to highlight wrestling videos to argue that McMahon and her husband, Vince, built their Stamford-based entertainment company through degrading and abusive portrayals of women.
WWE softened its rating to TV-PG from TV-14 in 2008 and last month announced it had removed from the Internet older, "edgier footage," including a skit of Vince McMahon ordering a woman to disrobe and bark like a dog on all fours. The company denies scrubbing the video library to help McMahon's candidacy, although Democrats remain suspicious.
"As a woman and a mom, I think it's truly shameful that Linda McMahon and the WWE are trying to hide the facts from Connecticut voters about the sex, violence and mistreatment of women that McMahon oversaw," one Murphy supporter, Marie Jeudy of Newington, said in a Connecticut Democratic Party news release.
McMahon was the wrestling firm's chief executive officer from 1993 until September 2009, when she stepped down for her first Senate run. Her campaign spokesman, Todd Abrajano, last week defended the WWE under McMahon's stewardship: "During the time that Linda McMahon was CEO of WWE, thousands of women enjoyed watching the entertainment that they provided and thousands of women still enjoy it to this day."
McMahon relaunched her candidacy in 2012 with a series of TV ads presenting a softer, more grandmotherly image.
The most recent opinion polls show McMahon and Murphy in a statistical tie or give Murphy a slight edge. A late August Q-poll shows McMahon still doing well with men (8-point lead) but also much better with women, where Murphy had a 4-point lead.
Kathy McShane, chairman of Women for Linda, attributes her candidate's improvement to more women having had an opportunity to meet and chat with McMahon during a series of more than 200 "Conversations with Linda" get-togethers, often hosted in a supporter's living room.
"The last election, I don't think Linda really reached out and let women get to know her," McShane said. "Now people are getting to know her, she's been invited into their homes for coffee, she has opened herself up and she's willing to answer their hard, tough questions."
'She can't be bought'
In local interviews, several likely voters including Jennifer O'Brien, 48, of Stonington, cited McMahon's wrestling business as a reason not to support her. "Certainly there is a lack of respect for women in the ring," she said.
Others, such as Lana Utz of New London, view McMahon's experience running a successful business as an outstanding qualification for high office.
Donna Works, 70, of Old Lyme, an unaffiliated voter, believes McMahon's personal fortune would benefit constituents by immunizing their would-be senator against influence by moneyed interests in Washington.
"She can't be bought," Works said.
Murphy, who is Protestant, continues to attack McMahon for what he considers her regressive views on women's health issues. He points to her support for a Republican proposal, the Blunt amendment, that would allow employers with moral objections to opt out of giving their workers coverage such as birth control under the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
McMahon has said she also wants to "repeal and replace" the entire health care law, popularly known as "Obamacare."
"Linda McMahon has said that she's pro-choice, but she's not," said Victoria Fennel of Hartford during a Murphy rally last week.
McMahon, who is Catholic, says she indeed supports full access to contraception and is pro-choice. She supports the Blunt amendment out of opposition to over-regulation of business, and opposes federal funding for abortions, except in cases of rape or incest or when a mother's life is at risk.
Both McMahon and Murphy generally oppose the "partial birth" procedure for terminating pregnancy.
Despite Democrats' hard focus on women's health in this campaign, few of the women interviewed by The Day mentioned abortion or contraception in explaining their likely choice in November.
One exception was Maxine Matta, 66, of New London, a registered Democrat who says she is normally open to voting for a Republican.
Matta said she considered voting for McMahon until she received notices from groups such as NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut.
"I was kind of leaning toward her in the beginning," Matta said, "but finding out her stance to a woman's right to contraception and insurance and how she's in with conservative Republicans on women's health issues, I've decided not to vote for her."
The modern notion of a distinct women's vote took shape in the 1970s, as women with interests in social issues generally leaned toward the Democratic Party, said Ronald Schurin, associate professor in political science at the University of Connecticut.
On a national scale, politicians such as former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, focused on issues of concern to women with successful results. But the appeals must appear genuine to work, Schurin said.
"If there's a perception that candidates are pandering to them in a narrow set of issues instead of the broader issues, that could have a negative impact," he said.
Schurin said it would be highly unusual for a candidate to target male voters in the same way.
"It has been the case traditionally that issues that are universal - the economy, national security, Social Security and so on - are of interest to men, and that there are no issues that are of unique or special concern to men," he said.
Suggestions of preferential loan treatment
Several McMahon supporters noted Murphy's past troubles with overdue rent and mortgage bills. They were generally familiar with McMahon's "Connect the Dots" ads that suggest Murphy received preferential loan treatment from a bank that overlooked his financial problems and later received bailout funds via the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program, for which Murphy voted.
Murphy and Webster Bank deny all allegations of wrongdoing.
"He can't pay his rent, he can't pay his mortgage and yet his bank gets this $400 million loan - it's not right," said Barbara Schubler, 62, of Waterford, a registered Republican.
But Marie Lavigne, 55, of East Lyme said a few overdue bills shouldn't disqualify Murphy from the Senate.
"I really don't care that Chris Murphy missed a rent payment," Lavigne said. "He's got my vote because at this point I think we've all missed a bill payment - that's human nature."
Shari Lucas, 52, of Niantic, a registered Democrat who has voted for Republicans, views McMahon's financial indiscretions as more serious.
Lucas said her husband's business was out thousands of dollars last year once a client declared bankruptcy. When she learned how McMahon decided only last month to voluntarily pay back the creditors from the McMahons' nearly $1 million personal bankruptcy in 1976, she found it "absolutely disgusting."
"How long now she's had millions of dollars and she's never repaid her creditors," Lucas said.
McMahon was under no legal obligation to pay the debt, however, and she said that until The Day obtained a copy of her bankruptcy records last month from the National Archives she hadn't seen the documents since the initial filing.
Pam Okerblom, 53, of Groton, is a registered Democrat who isn't hot for either candidate. She disapproves of how McMahon handled the 1970s bankruptcy - "she wasn't paying any of those debts until she was forced to," Okerblom said - but is unsettled by what she is hearing about Murphy in campaign ads.
"I wish there was a third person to choose from," she said.
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Sandra Uwimbabazi knows runways – she's modeled for years – but she stumbled on a recent Saturday here.
A tall, slender young law student, Uwimbabazi was one of eight women vying to win Rwanda's most high-profile beauty competition.
On her second lap around the stage, she misstepped in her high heels – but didn't fall. The graceful save as much as her beauty may have won her the title. Poise, some observers said afterward, is now more important than being pretty.
The comment reflects a tension over defining Rwandan beauty. Here the shape of one's nose, hips, or eyes are overlaid with political and historical meaning. During the 1994 genocide, "the first fact was to see the nose to tell if this is a Tutsi or this is a Hutu," says Cyrille Nshimiyimana, a second-year medical student, who was among the 3,000 people packed into the National University auditorium for the Miss Nyampinga contest.
As the nation moves beyond the tragic events of 1994, traditional standards of Rwandan beauty may be changing – or at least are being challenged.
"Beauty contests are used to assert a national identity, particularly in instances where and in places where a national identity is problematic," says Maxine Leeds Craig, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California-Davis and author of "Ain't I a Beauty Queen?: Black Women, Beauty and the Politics of Race."
The pageant stage is a space Rwandans are using to serve two national objectives: advancing gender equality and fostering national unity.
"I had an agenda to promote gender another step," says John Peter Higiro, a fourth-year medical student who founded the Miss Nyampinga competition, which includes students from other major Rwandan institutes of higher learning, at the National University of Rwanda four years ago. The contest encourages women to assert their intelligence and personality, though women have downplayed such characteristics "in our tradition," he says.
Joseph Habineza, whose Ministry of Culture and Sports sponsors the competition, agrees. "They're shy," he says of Rwandan women, "but we want a new Rwandan style.... We really have to liberate them. So it's sort of an emboldening initiative."
It's also a bold step in a country where physical stereotypes have had deadly consequences.
"She must be pretty, in her face and body.... She must have small eyes," says Mr. Nshimiyimana, the medical student. "But we don't look at the nose. Here in Rwanda, we have a problem [with] the nose," he says, referring to how Tutsis were singled out in the 1994 genocide.
An estimated 800,000 Tutsis were murdered by Hutu militias in an event scholars say had its origins in a long history of oppression initiated by Belgian colonists – and propped up by racist notions of European beauty.
"There is what was called the Hamitic hypothesis," explains Jean Leonard Buhigiro, a professor of history at the Kigali Institute of Education (KIE) in Rwanda's capital. European explorers, and then Belgian colonizers, "tried to describe Rwanda according to social classes, then identified one social class as European ... and the other social group [as] a group which is ugly."
Like most Rwandans, he won't use the words "Hutu" or "Tutsi" – usually considered ethnic groups by outsiders (the terms were legally abolished in Rwanda in 2004). But history makes Buhigiro's meaning clear.
Belgian administrative reports describe Tutsis' "high brow, thin nose, and fine lips." One colonial missionary called them "European[s] under black skin."
Most attendees at the Butare beauty contest won't discuss facial features. The definition of beauty that dominates the pageant world isn't far from what, in Rwanda, is still taboo.
"There is facially an international standard of beauty that is more European," says Professor Craig. "I don't think a woman with an exceptionally broad nose would win an international beauty contest.... On top of that ... is the hair. Can a woman with unstraightened African hair be crowned a beauty? I doubt it."
These debates are ever-present subtexts as pageants grow in popularity here. Miss Nyampinga organizers have drafted their own criteria on the minimum and maximum height and weigh requirements by averaging standards from American, British, and French competitions.
This spring, at the first Miss KIE competition, an audience debate erupted about whether a true Rwandan beauty should be light- or dark-skinned. At the National University, students argued over how curvy the winner should be.
"The more there is this kind of contention, the more aware people are that beauty is political," says Richard Wilk, co-editor of "Beauty Queens on the Global Stage." "There is no kind of absolute standard."
Minister Habineza says beauty pageants recall pre-colonial days. The king of Rwanda once held a competition to choose a wife, he says. The organizers evoked that era by naming the contest "Miss Nyampinga," a traditional word for a woman who embodies physical beauty, social grace, and compassion.
"Some people say, 'This will create division, because beautiful ladies must be tall,' " he says. "But tall doesn't mean to be a Tutsi. And also being short doesn't mean to be a Hutu."
Some students hope that being called beautiful might become as unpredictable.
Alyce Akineza, a journalism student and co-master of ceremonies at Miss Nyampinga, got a round of applause when she said one day, beautiful might not just mean thin. "In case people were wondering, Rwandan women, we look more like this," Akineza said, grabbing her thick hips, "than that," and she gestured toward the contestants, most of whom were Milan-model thin.
"Is there any way we can have a Miss like me?" she asked. "We could call it, 'Fat Almost Beautiful Girls.' Or 'Chubby Girls' Or 'Normal Women.'"


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Nearly three years after a cost-cutting drive that stunned many in the drugs industry, Pfizer Inc's head of research Mikael Dolsten says his scientists are delivering more for less.
The ability of the biggest US drugmaker to slash research spending by a fifth without reducing the flow of new drugs has boosted returns on invested capital, been applauded by Wall Street and not gone unnoticed at rivals.
Last week, Merck & Co Inc followed a similar path with a plan to cut costs and scrap 8,500 jobs.
But Dolsten, 55, Pfizer's quietly spoken president of worldwide research and development (R&D), who has spent 15 of his 25 years in the pharmaceuticals industry working in Europe, is not ready to declare the job finished yet. He intends to fine-tune the company's R&D engine further by a process of "dynamic" shifting of resources to the hottest research areas, which currently include cancer, vaccines and immune system medicines.
"Reinventing drug discovery and development is not a one-time fix. It is a multi-year journey," he said in an interview at Pfizer's Neusentis drug research unit outside Cambridge, England.
After closing numerous research sites and cutting spending in several areas requiring big sales forces, Dolsten said Pfizer now had the right level of R&D spending overall - but it would be adjusted and redeployed as projects waxed and waned.
"There is a committed strategic funding for each therapeutic area that gives them critical mass, and then we will move resources as we see the most successful projects need them," he said.
"In the near-term, we see oncology, vaccines and immunology as three very strong areas ... if great projects arrive, like palbociclib in breast cancer, then we will fund those projects appropriately."
Palbociclib, which analysts from JP Morgan and Leerink Swann believe could generate annual sales of $5 billion or more, is arguably Pfizer's most valuable compound in late-stage development and the company has started several new clinical trials to maximise its potential.
However, Dolsten said he was also excited about the upside for Pfizer's established Prevnar 13 vaccine - already widely used in children - which may be given as well to prevent pneumonia in adults if clinical tests produce good results.
Other big drugmakers have also pruned costs in the face of disappointing R&D returns and shrinking sales, due to patent losses, but Pfizer's cuts have been particularly deep.
The line-up of medicines getting priority treatment at Pfizer these days is very different from the past, when sales were dominated by the cholesterol fighter Lipitor, once the world's top-selling drug. Lipitor was a mass-market drug with peak sales of $12 billion a year but its price crashed once the patent expired in 2011 and cheap generic copies flooded the market. Nowadays, the focus is on "precision" drugs targeted at selected groups of patients - and the low-key building housing Neusentis south of Cambridge exemplifies the new slimmed-down Pfizer.
One of the drugs being worked on at Neusentis is a novel painkiller inspired by a rare genetic mutation detected among a few families in northern Pakistan who do not feel pain. The drug is being tested in patients with an extremely rare type of neuropathic pain called erythromelalgia.
Such medicines, if successful, offer true innovation and can fill a critical market niche - a combination that makes for a compelling value proposition to put to healthcare providers.
At the moment, Pfizer is not disclosing just how well its new R&D structure is performing in terms of financial returns, emphasising instead the progress of the pipeline and its run of recent drug approvals, which include cancer drugs Xalkori, Inlyta and Bosulif, and Xeljanz for rheumatoid arthritis.
But Dolsten said he might consider sharing more information about R&D returns in due course.
Britain's GlaxoSmithKline Plc is currently the only major drugmaker to report an internal rate of return on R&D investment. It said last year that returns had reached 12 percent, up from 11 percent in 2010, and it was confident of reaching its longer-term 14 percent target.
Dolsten said Pfizer's own internal financial measurements had also shown an improvement, although the U.S. company was wary of publishing data prematurely. "If you put metrics on the table too early it may serve your story but I'm not sure if those metrics have meaning," he said.


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Governor John Kitzhaber on Monday announced his appointments to a newly created Board of Trustees for Portland State University, part of the governor's comprehensive overhaul of Oregon's public education system.
PSU's new 15-member board will provide fiscal stewardship for the university while promoting student equity and access and excellence in teaching, research, and community service. Governor Kitzhaber also announced appointees to the boards for Oregon State University, the University of Oregon and Higher Education Coordinating Commission.
Go here for the governor's full announcement and here for the full list of candidates for all four boards. The appointments are subject to Senate approval.
"We have recruited an outstanding, experienced set of leaders to serve on Oregon's higher education boards," said Gov. Kitzhaber. "Together, they offer deep and broad expertise in all aspects and levels of education, which will inform their work to ensure that Oregon's higher education system is efficient, equitable, and well-coordinated. I am confident these appointees will be laser-focused on supporting Oregon students while helping to deepen relationships among higher education, K-12, early learning providers, and other education partners."
Beginning July 1, 2014, these institutional boards will be responsible for overseeing their respective institutions, including the authority to hire the President, issue bonds, set tuition (subject to HECC and legislative oversight), and operate as separate legal entities. The boards will also be focused on meeting Oregon's education goals by helping more Oregon students earn post-secondary degrees at an affordable price. Students, faculty, and non-faculty staff members serve for two-year terms, with four-year terms for the others.
Here are the governor's appointments to PSU's board:
Swati AdarkarA recognized leader, adviser and spokesperson on early childhood issues, Adarkar is president and CEO of the Children's Institute based in Portland, Oregon. Adarkar has a wealth of experience in research, communications, child advocacy and public policy development. Adarkar has helped shape the growth of the Children's Institute since its inception, first serving as vice president of research and communications. Prior to that, she advised nonprofit organizations on public policy and communications, served as policy director for Children First for Oregon, and was director of community affairs for Children Now. An instrumental leader in the 2007 expansion of Oregon Head Start Prekindergarten, Adarkar also helped lead the successful campaign for first time state funding for Early Head Start in 2010. She also served on Oregon's first Early Childhood Matters Advisory Council for Governor Kulongoski and on Governor Kitzhaber's Early Childhood and Family Investment Transition Team. Adarkar is currently a member of the Cradle-to-Career Council in Multnomah County. Adarkar has a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor's degree in communications studies from UCLA.
Gale CastilloCastillo is the president and one of the founders of the Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber, the largest Hispanic Chamber in the Northwest with over 800 members. Castillo is also the co-owner of Cascade Centers, Inc., one of the largest privately held companies that provides Employee Assistance Program (EAP) service and staff development in the U.S. In addition to her work with the Chamber and Cascade Centers, Castillo previously worked as an assistant to former Oregon Gov. Neil Goldschmidt and as the state manager of the Oregon Economic Development Department's Job Training Administration. In the private sector, Castillo has worked for AT&T, Pacific Northwest Bell, and RESTOR Communications in management, marketing, and national sales positions. The recipient of many awards for service to her community, Castillo is the first in her family to graduate from college receiving a Bachelor of Arts, Linfield College and a Masters of Arts, Education, Portland State University. Castillo has also completed Harvard Kennedy School's Executive Education Program.
Paul J. De Muniz The Honorable Paul J. De Muniz was elected to the Oregon Supreme Court in 2000 and served as the court's chief justice and administrative head of the Oregon Judicial Department from January 2006 to May 2012, retiring from the court at the end of 2012. Between 1990 and 2000, he sat on the Oregon Court of Appeals and served as presiding judge on one of the three panels that comprise that body. Prior to ascending to the bench, De Muniz was in private practice for 13 years, specializing in complex criminal and civil litigation, as well as appeals. From 1975 to 1977, he was a deputy public defender for the State of Oregon. De Muniz was inducted into the National Center for State Courts' Warren E Burger Society in 201l. He serves as a member of the boards of the Conference of Chief Justices and the National Judicial College and recently completed a three-year term as a member of the Harvard Kennedy School's Executive Session for State Court Leaders in the 21st Century. De Muniz received his bachelor's degree from Portland State University in 1972 and his Juris Doctor from Willamette University College of Law in 1975. He was the first Hispanic elected to statewide office in Oregon.
Sho Dozono A graduate of Portland State, Dozono is the president and CEO of Azumano Travel. A prominent member of the Portland business community and an active civic leader, Dozono was born in Japan and moved to Portland with his family when he was 10. He attended Cleveland High School and earned his bachelor's degree in education and history from the University of Washington. He later went on to earn a master's degree in education from PSU and to teach social studies at Grant High School for five years. Dozono joined his father-in-law's business, Azumano Travel, in the mid-70s, becoming president in 1981. Dozono founded the Portland School Foundation and organized a massive march in support of school funding in the late 1990s, which helped raise millions of dollars to save teaching positions. A strong advocate of diversity and equal opportunity, Dozono has served as co-chair of the Oregon League of Minority Voters, the US-Japan Council, the Portland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, and the Portland Oregon Visitors Association, among other organizations. He is known as an advocate for Oregon as both a travel and tourism destination as well as an ideal location for business and investment opportunities.
James Francesconi Francesconi was appointed to the Oregon State Board of Higher Education in February 2007, and served as vice president of the board from 2009-2011. Francesconi is currently an attorney with the law firm of Haglund, Kelley, Horngren, Jones, and Wilder LLP, and has an extensive background in community and public leadership. Francesconi is well known as a champion of all levels of education from K-12 to higher education. He is a co-founder of Schools Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN), which provides before- and after-school programs, and the Portland Workforce Alliance, which partners employers with high schools providing mentorships and work experience. Francesconi also is founder and president of The Oregon Idea, a coalition of higher education stakeholders that advocates for greater public investment in higher education. Francesconi serves as a member of the Thomas A. Edison High School Board, the World Affairs Council Board, the OMSI Emeritus Board, and, most recently, the St. Andrew Nativity School Board. Francesconi also served as a city commissioner on the Portland City Council for two terms, from 1997 to 2004, managing Portland Parks & Recreation, Portland Department of Transportation, and Fire and Emergency Services. Francesconi received a B.A. in Humanities from Stanford University, and his J.D. from the University of Oregon. He is a member of the Oregon State Bar.
Thomas J. Imeson A member of the PSU Foundation Board of Directors, Imeson has been employed at Port of Portland in the position of public affairs director since November 30, 2006. Imeson started his own consulting firm in 2000 and was appointed by Governor Kulongoski to serve on the Port Commission in 2003. Mr. Imeson has served with three Oregon Governors. He was chief of staff for Governor Goldschmidt from 1987 to 1991 and served on the transition teams for both Governor Kitzhaber and Governor Kulongoski. He spent 16 years on Senator Mark Hatfield's staff serving in a variety of positions including Oregon field director and a member of the staff of the Senate Energy and Senate Appropriations Committees. His private sector experience, in addition to his consulting practice, includes 11 years with PacifiCorp, first as federal affairs manager and then as a vice president. Imeson's civic involvement has included committee and board work with Oregon Environmental Council, Oregon Health & Science University, the Oregon Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, Cascade Aids Project, Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission and the Oregon Board of Higher Education, where he served as president of the board. Imeson received a bachelor's degree from Johns Hopkins University.
Fariborz Maseeh Dr. Maseeh is the founder and president of The Massiah Foundation, a charitable organization which invests in programs that can result in broad public benefits in education, health or arts and culture. He is also the founder of Kids Institute for Development and Advancement and an investment firm, Orbitron LP, Picoco LLC, and is the founder, president and CEO of IntelliSense Corp. A first-generation immigrant from Iran who arrived in America at the age of 18, Dr. Maseeh attended Portland State University where he earned a bachelor of science degree in engineering and a master's degree in applied mathematics. He went on to receive a second master's in engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and his doctorate in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A generous philanthropist as well as a creative entrepreneur, Dr. Maseeh has donated $12 million to PSU in recent years. The College of Engineering and Computer Science, to which he donated $8 million, is now named the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science. Dr. Maseeh has published numerous scientific articles and serves on the board of several technology firms and engineering advisory boards at MIT, USC and PSU. Although his main residence is now in Southern California, Dr. Maseeh also owns several commercial properties and a condo in Oregon.
Rick Miller (Karl R. Miller, Jr.)Rick Miller is the founder and chairman of Avamere Group, one of the Northwest's largest senior care and housing providers with an employee base of more than 6,500. A sixth-generation Oregonian committed to starting and growing businesses, Miller co-founded the private equity firm, Rogue Investments, in 2010 to provide other entrepreneurs in Oregon with funding and mentorship. Miller serves on the boards of ID Experts and Diabetomics and is past chairman of the American Health Care Organization, the Oregon Health Care Association and the Portland-based chapter of the Young Presidents' Organization. Miller also is co-chair of Portland State University's School of Business Administration Building Campaign. Miller was recognized in Portland Business Journal's "Forty Under 40" in 2004 and his company was selected as one of "Oregon's Most Admired Companies" in 2010. He also was honored as the 2012 Distinguished Graduate Alumnus by the PSU School of Business Administration, and he and his wife, Erika, recently received the Simon Benson Award for philanthropy. Miller earned his bachelor's degree in marketing and management from the University of Oregon and his MBA in 1991 from Portland State.
Pete Nickerson The immediate past-chair of the PSU Foundation Board of Directors, Nickerson is the co-founder and principal of Chinus Asset Management. The former general manager of Nike in China, Nickerson is a fluent Mandarin speaker who has conducted business throughout Asia and lived for extended periods in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore. Nickerson has also founded and developed trading, investing and manufacturing businesses that currently generate just under $1 billion of sales and directly employ over 85,000 people. Nickerson has been deeply involved in both the Asian and American public and private equity markets over the past four decades and has built an extensive network in Asia through his role as director of Growth-Link Overseas Company, a Hong Kong–based investment firm he co-founded in 1988. Nickerson currently serves as a board member for two publicly listed companies: Feng Tay Enterprises (TW9910) on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and Cascade Corporation (CASC) on the NYSE. Nickerson holds a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Oregon.
Peter Stott Stott has been president of Columbia Investments, Ltd. since 1983. He also served as the vice chairman and a principal of the real estate private equity firm ScanlanKemperBard Companies from 2005 to 2010 and as CEO of that company from 2008 to 2010. Stott was formerly president and CEO of Crown Pacific from 1988 to 2004. Stott founded Market Transport, Ltd. in 1969, the largest "asset-based" transportation and logistics services company headquartered in Oregon, and served as chairman and CEO of the company until 2006. Stott is a member of the board of directors of the Portland State University Foundation, member of the Founder's Circle of SOLV, and trustee of the Portland Art Museum. Stott also serves on the Board of Directors of Gerding/Edlen Development Company, a Portland-based commercial real estate development firm specializing in mixed-use urban renewal projects and Omega Morgan, one of the largest machinery moving and industrial construction companies in the Pacific Northwest. Stott attended Portland State University and has an honorary doctorate from the university.
Christine VernierVernier is co-founder and CFO of Vernier Software & Technology, a 32-year old company that produces STEM educational software and hardware. Vernier S&T is an active member of HOSP (Hands-On Science Partnership) and Change the Equation. Vernier and her husband also are co-founders of the Vernier Charitable Fund at the Oregon Community Foundation and are major donors to numerous education, social service and environmental organizations in Oregon. Vernier currently serves on the Triangle Coalition for STEM Education, a national board advocating for the improvement of STEM education, as well as the board of the Oregon Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. She previously served on the boards of the Oregon Business Education Compact and the Board of Visitors for the College of Science at Oregon State University, among other boards. Vernier has received distinguished service awards from the American Association of Physics, AAPT Ohio section, University of Oregon, and Oregon Science Teachers Association. A social worker and law office manager prior to co-founding Vernier S&T, Vernier received her B.A. in Sociology from Ohio State University.
Maude Hines A recent past-presiding officer of the PSU Faculty Senate, Dr. Hines is an associate professor of English. Dr. Hines specializes in American Literature. Her teaching and research focuses on Anglo-American Children's Literature, African American Literature, and Cultural Studies. Dr. Hines is currently completing a manuscript on citizen formation in late nineteenth-century American children's literature. She is also working on a project about the treatment of racial transformation in American cultural production. Her published work includes articles on Philip Pullman, Alice Walker and Paule Marshall, Ecocriticism in Children's Literature, and Louisa May Alcott. In addition to her leadership role on the PSU Faculty Senate, Dr. Hines is currently PSU's lead representative to the OUS Interinstitutional Faculty Senate and IFS representative to the OUS Provost's Council. Dr. Hines received her B.A. from The City College of New York in 1992 and her Ph.D. from Duke University in 1998. Dr. Hines has served on the PSU faculty since 2000.
Pamela Campos-Palma Campos-Palma served seven years in the U.S. Air Force as an intelligence analyst, and is now a reservist. During her service she volunteered as a sexual assault response coordinator (SARC) assistant for a deployed installation, as well as volunteering with local communities in Europe and Southeast Asia. She is a full-time student, working toward her B.A. in political science and civic leadership at PSU's Hatfield School of Government. Campos-Palma is the director of the Latina/women's empowerment organization Las Mujeres de la Raza, and works in PSU's Veterans Resource Center. She previously worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs Vocational Rehabilitation Department and PSU'S Veterans Certification Office. As a prominent student and community leader, Campos-Palma has fostered positive collaborations and unity between diverse student, faculty and community partners. She is an alumna of the highly selective National Hispana Leadership Institute (NHLI) in Washington, D.C., as well as NEW Leadership Oregon, and serves on the Center for Women Politics and Policy's governance and outreach committee. Campos-Palma also has worked at the state and federal levels as a lobbyist and translator on behalf of marginalized community members. She is an intern for U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley.
Erica BestpitchBestpitch has been a member of the Portland State community since 2010. During her time in the conflict resolution master's program, she served students and staff by providing direct services, training, and education through the then-named Student Center for Dispute Resolution. Since graduating, Bestpitch has worked as the administrative program assistant to both the C.A.R.E. Team and the Conduct & Community Standards Office under the Dean of Student Life. In addition to her duties within Enrollment Management & Student Affairs, Bestpitch is a coordinator of the newly-named Conflict Resolution Resource Center, which helps students living on campus deal with conflict in any area of life. She is also the secretary for SEIU 503 Local 89. Since 2011, she has designed and led conflict resolution trainings for Janus Youth Programs, Job Corps training centers, and other community-based organizations. Bestpitch says her work at PSU is informed by her "dedication to social justice, collaboration, and creativity," and that she is "passionate about education that promotes a greater quality of life for all." Bestpitch earned her bachelor's degree in sociology at Scripps College in Claremont, California.
Wim Wiewel (non-voting member)Wiewel assumed the presidency of Portland State University in August 2008. Prior to coming to PSU, Wiewel was the provost and senior vice president of Academic Affairs at the University of Baltimore. From 1979-2004, Wiewel was with the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where he most recently served as dean of the College of Business Administration. Wiewel also directed UIC's Center for Urban Economic Development. He holds degrees in sociology and urban planning from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University. Wiewel has authored or edited nine books and more than 65 articles and chapters that have appeared in publications and journals, including "Economic Development Quarterly," "Economic Geography" and the "Journal of the American Planning Association." His most recent books are "Global Universities and Urban Development," "The University as Urban Developer" and "Suburban Sprawl."


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In our July issue, we covered the job of installing a pair Wilwood front disc brakes on a '58 Vette, an upgrade intended to enhance both the stopping power and the appearance of the car. This month we move aft, swapping out the car's Eisenhower-era rear drums for a complementary Wilwood disc/rotor pairing.
Adding a modicum of complexity to this portion of the project was the car owner's choice to concurrently install a fortified rear-axle assembly in place of the non-Posi original. If you've been keeping tabs on this buildup over the past several months, you'll recall that the '58 is equipped with a 406-inch small-block generating well north of 400 horsepower, far more than the open stocker was designed to handle. Since the brake swap involved partially disassembling the rear anyway, it just made sense to execute both tasks at once.
To recap, our Wilwood kit contained a quartet of Forged Dynalite Pro rotors measuring 11-inches in diameter, along with a master cylinder, a proportioning valve, and a full complement of installation hardware. While those rotors might sound smallish by today's standards, the advantages of even modestly sized disc brakes over an old-tech drum setup can't be overstated. Add in the fact that we were working within the confines of the Vette's 15-inch custom wheels and unaltered bodywork, and the benefits of this project quickly become apparent.
Let's take a look at the rear portion of our C1 brake upgrade now, as we continue to nudge this renascent street/strip hooligan toward modern levels of performance, safety, and daily livability.
01. With the car safely off the ground, it's time to remove the five bolts from our Corvette Central–sourced Torq-Thrust II wheels, followed by the rims themselves.
02. At this point, the stock drums should slide right off.
03. Typically, the next step would be to take off the drum's backing plate by removing the four bolts that hold it in place. But since we're changing out the entire rearend, AntiVenom's Greg Lovell instead turns his attention to the shackles securing the axle to the leaf spring.
04. With the right- and left-side shackles out, the only things keeping the rear-axle assembly in the car are the leaf bundles. (The driveshaft was unbolted prior to our shoot.) Once the brake lines are disconnected, the old rear should slide right out.
05. Here's a comparison of the old rear (bottom) and the new heavy-duty piece. The latter is based on a 9-inch Ford design, with custom modifications to adapt it for use on our Vette.
06. After sliding the new rear into place under the car, Lovell reinstalls the shackles that secure it. Note that the existing driveshaft will need to be modified for compatibility with the 9-incher.
07. A heavy-duty rear demands a similarly stout differential, and this one fits the bill nicely. It comprises a Strange aluminum housing equipped with 3.50 gears and an Eaton Detroit Truetrac unit to prevent clicking and binding in corners.
08. Lift, shmift. Leveraging his Antaean strength and ballerina's grace, Lovell maneuvers the differential into position and bolts it down. Attempt this bit of creative contortionism at your own risk.
09. Because we're using an aftermarket rear, we used special Moser T-headed bolts to hold our new brake backing plates in place. For factory-style axles, the included Wilwood bolts will work just fine.
10. Lovell slips one of our new Moser axles in next, followed by the retainer plate. Note that we're using beefy, 3⁄8-inch Moser studs in anticipation of future dragstrip use.
11. After bolting down the backing-plate assembly, Lovell moves on to the spacer ring (shown), seal, and, finally, the new Wilwood rotor itself. You can see that Wilwood helpfully includes multiple bolt holes to ensure compatibility with a wide range of patterns.
12. Here's the rotor as installed. Be sure to verify that you've oriented yours correctly, with the provided directional arrow pointing forward.
13. It's now time to bolt up our Wilwood caliper, using the provided mounting shims to center the caliper over the rotor. Use the number of shims required to achieve equal rotor spacing for the outboard and inboard pistons. We needed three.
14. With the caliper on (you did remember to install the included pads, yes?), it's time to shift our attention to the parking-brake lines. After removing the stock lines and performing an initial mockup, Lovell cuts the jacket on the Wilwood–supplied line to fit.
15. All that's left at this point is to install the new Wilwood brackets and route the lines. When you're done, the results should look something like this.
16. Reinstall the wheel and marvel at your own mechanical moxie. A lack of time in Mr. Lovell's busy Vette-fettling schedule prevented us from installing our Wilwood master cylinder and fabricating new hydraulic lines, so we'll address that final portion of the job in an upcoming issue.


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Massena Winter Carnival kicks off Saturday with opening ceremonies, breakfast, hockey tourney
MASSENA – The Massena Winter Carnival will kick off with opening ceremonies and breakfast at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 28 at the Massena Arena Annex along with the second day of the Massena Cup Hockey Tournament.
Lots of children's events will start out the week Saturday, with snowshoe and snow candle lessons for kids at the Robert Moses State Park Nature Center at 9:30 a.m. and children's activities at the Massena Community Center, including horse drawn wagon rides, beginning at 11 a.m.Events continue that weekend with Kickball Tournaments sponsored by The Ale House beginning at 12:30 p.m. Sunday, and a trivia afternoon at the Massena Elks Club at 1:30 p.m.
Special 'Celebrate Winter' Storytimes will be held for preschoolers at Massena Public Library at 10 a.m. Monday, Jan. 30 and Thursday, Feb. 2.
A spaghetti dinner and bonfire will be held beginning at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 31 at the Massena Rod and Gun Club.
On Thursday, Feb. 2, a special Family Feud hosted by local radio stations will be held at the Knight of Columbus Hall, with cash prizes awarded beginning at 7 p.m.
Friday, Feb. 3 starts off a weekend filled with events: Winter Carnival Parade at 7 p.m., Main Street, and Fireworks at Bushnell Field at 8 p.m.
Saturday, Feb. 4 includes: Massena Dash-Dog Sled Races 8 a.m., Ladies Day In Craft Show 11 a.m., Horse Drawn Rides all day beginning at 11 a.m. along with children's activities all at the NYPA Hawkins Point Visitors Center; learn to snowshoe or snow candle for kids at the Robert Moses State Park Nature Center at 9:30 a.m., along with a StoryWalk Snowshoe for families; a 5K Walk/Run/Showshoe 8:30 a.m. (Massena Country Club), Wii Bowling & Shuffleboard Tournaments 10 a.m. to noon, Lunch at 1 p.m., Craft Show, Bake Sale & White Elephant Sale 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. all at the Massena Community Center-Massena Senior Citizens Community Center, Co-ed Snow Volleyball Tournament 12:30 p.m. (The Ale House), chicken barbecue at noon (Massena Volunteer Fire Department), Meet & Greet the Mushers Reception 6 p.m. (Dar's Place), a guided moonlight ski and snowshoe hike at the Nature Center 7 p.m., and karaoke at 9 p.m. (The Village Inn).
Sunday, Feb. 5 will begin with a breakfast 8 a.m. (Knights of Columbus) and the Massena Dash-Dog Sled Races beginning at 8 a.m. (NYPA Hawkins Point Visitors Center), and closing ceremonies at 3 p.m. (NYPA Hawkins Point Visitors Center).
For a full slate of activities, dates, places and times, visit www.massenachamber.com and click on the Winter Carnival logo.


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Light connects people and devices
With light we make existing infrastructures usable for smart applications and industry 4.0 applications. Our intelligent platforms enable us to connect infrastructure, standardize processes, improve workplace safety or increase warehouse efficiency. This is how we drive the Internet of Things with light.
Main areas of connectivity and communication
Our mission - Connectivity
Our lives, and also our sense of perception, are becoming increasingly digitalized. OSRAM is working at shaping the digital future - with people as the center of our efforts.
We concentrate an three main topics:
- First, the new worlds of perception (e.g. virtual and augmented reality).
- Second, the digitization and networking of our professional and private lives (e.g. Warehouse 4.0, Internet of Things).
- Third, the platforms and components upon which digitization is based.


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VANCOUVER — Groups representing scientists and science writers sent an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Friday calling on his government to stop "muzzling" federal researchers.
Attendees at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual conference heard numerous examples of alleged government interference and reporters being denied timely access to scientists.
Such control is sinking morale among scientists and denying the public access to important information about climate, agriculture and the environment, the conference heard.
"Why are we suppressing really good news to Canadians — that is, successful science being done in federal government labs?" asked Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist at the University of Victoria. "Why don't we open it up? There's nothing to be feared but success."
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States recently adopted a policy that encourages its scientists to talk freely to the media without an intermediary.
Under the new policy, scientists are allowed to express their own opinions, on the condition they make it clear that they are not speaking on behalf of the agency.
The letter addressed to the prime minister Friday urged the government to take a similar approach.
"Despite promises that your majority government would follow principles of accountability and transparency, federal scientists in Canada are still not allowed to speak to reporters without the 'consent' of media relations officers," the letter read.
It was signed by several groups, including the Canadian Science Writers Association, World Federation of Science Journalists, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, the union that represents 23,000 federal scientists.
The Prime Minister's Office referred questions Friday to the office of Gary Goodyear, minister of state for science and technology.
In an email, spokesman Jay Jacobson said the government's communications policy is designed to ensure that "interviews or technical information on specialized subjects, are directed to knowledgeable managers or staff designated to speak as official representatives."
He added that science-based departments and agencies produce publications — available to the public — highlighting research activities and findings.
"As well, public web portals, such as the Science and Technology for Canadians website, have been developed to communicate information on federally funded science and technology directly to Canadians."
One of the presenters at the conference was Postmedia News senior science writer Margaret Munro.
Munro described how, in the past, reporters could get interviews with government scientists within an hour of submitting a request.
That began to change in late 2007, she said, when Environment Canada issued a new "media relations protocol" that required scientists to refer media inquiries first to communications officers, who would help craft responses to reporters' questions.
"Just as we have 'one department, one website' we should have 'one department, one voice,' " reads an internal document later uncovered by Munro.
Despite an editorial in the influential British journal Nature condemning the policy, the policy spread to other science-based departments.
Munro described reporters' frustration in January 2011 when they were denied interviews with Kristi Miller, a scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada. She was the lead author of a study published in the journal Science that examined the decline of salmon stocks on the West Coast.
Even though reporters were told that a media officer with the department would help them set up interviews, the Privy Council Office stepped in and blocked all interviews.
The office said at the time that it was concerned Miller's comments could influence an ongoing judicial inquiry into declines of Fraser River sockeye salmon.
The same thing happened in October 2011. A team of researchers published a report in Nature about an "unprecedented" hole that opened up in the ozone layer above the Arctic.
But when reporters tried to interview David Tarasick, an Environment Canada researcher on the team, they were turned down.
It wasn't until a few weeks later that Environment Canada said Tarasick was available for interviews.
"I'm available when media relations says I'm available," he said at the time. "I have to go through them."
Munro said Friday she knows some reporters who don't bother approaching the federal government anymore to talk to scientists.
"This is frustrating for scientists and incredibly frustrating for journalists," she said.


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Inbreeding – Cousin marriages and health disorders
It is estimated that at least 55% of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins and the tradition is also common among some other South Asian communities and in some Middle Eastern countries. But there is a problem: marrying someone who is themselves a close family member carries a risk for children, a risk that lies within the code of life, inside our genes. Communities that practice cousin marriage experience higher levels of some very rare but very serious illnesses known as recessive genetic disorders.
Such unions are seen as strong because they build on tight family networks and family events gets better because the in-laws are already related to each other and have the same family history. But the statistics for recessive genetic illness in cousin marriages is serious as British Pakistanis are 13 times more likely to have children with genetic disorders than the general population.
Cousin marriages
Cousin marriage is marriage between two cousins. This kind of marriage is highly stigmatized today in the West, but it does account for over 10% of marriages worldwide as it is common in the Middle East, where in some nations they account for over half of all marriages.
According to Professor Robin Fox of Rutgers University, it is likely that 80% of all marriages in history have been between second cousins or closer. It is generally accepted that the founding population of Homo sapiens was small, anywhere from 700 to 10,000 individuals. Rates of first-cousin marriage in the United States, Europe, and other Western countries like Brazil have declined since the 19th century, though even during that period they were not more than 3.63% of all unions in Europe. But in many other world regions cousin marriage is still strongly favoured: in the Middle East some countries have seen the rate rise over previous generations, and one study finds quite stable rates among Indian Muslims over the past four decades.
Cousin marriage has often been chosen to keep cultural values and ensure the compatibility of spouses, preserve familial wealth, sometimes via advantages relating to dowry or bride price. Other reasons may include geographic proximity, tradition, strengthening of family ties, maintenance of family structure, a closer relationship between the wife and her in-laws, greater marital stability and durability, ease of prenuptial negotiations, enhanced female autonomy, the desire to avoid hidden health problems and other undesirable traits in a lesser-known spouse, and romantic love.
United States
The United States has the only bans on cousin marriage in the Western world. As of February 2010[update], 30 U.S. states prohibit most or all marriage between first cousins together with other 6 states.
Cousin marriage was legal in all US states in the Union prior to the Civil War. However, according to Kansas sociology professor Martin Ottenheimer, after the Civil War the main purpose of marriage prohibitions was increasingly seen as less maintaining the social order and upholding religious morality and more as safeguarding the creation of fit offspring. By the 1870s, Lewis Henry Morgan was writing about "the advantages of marriages between unrelated persons" and the necessity of avoiding "the evils of consanguine marriage." Cousin marriage to Morgan, and more specifically parallel-cousin marriage, was a remnant of a more primitive stage of human social organization. Morgan himself had married his mother's brother's daughter in 1851.
In 1846 the Governor of Massachusetts appointed a commission to study "idiots" in the state which implicated cousin marriage as being responsible for idiocy. Within the next two decades numerous reports appeared coming to similar conclusions, including for example by the Kentucky Deaf and Dumb Asylum, which concluded that cousin marriage resulted in deafness, blindness, and idiocy. Perhaps most important was the report of physician S.M. Bemiss for the American Medical Association, which concluded "that multiplication of the same blood by in-and-in marrying does incontestably lead in the aggregate to the physical and mental depravation of the offspring."
These developments led to thirteen states and territories passing cousin marriage prohibitions by the 1880s. Though contemporaneous, the eugenics movement did not play much direct role in the bans, and indeed George Louis Arner in 1908 considered them a clumsy and ineffective method of eugenics, which he thought would eventually be replaced by more refined techniques. Ottenheimer considers both the bans and eugenics to be "one of several reactions to the fear that American society might degenerate." In any case, by the period up until the mid-1920s the number of bans had more than doubled. Since that time, the only three states to successfully add this prohibition are Kentucky in 1943, Maine in 1985, and Texas in 2005. The NCCUSL unanimously recommended in 1970 that all such laws should be repealed, but no state has dropped its prohibition since the mid-1920s.
Only Austria, Hungary, and Spain banned cousin marriage throughout the 19th century, with dispensations being available from the government in the last two countries. Protestant, the Church of Sweden didn't ban first-cousin marriage until 1680 and required dispensation until 1844. England maintained a small but stable proportion of cousin marriages for centuries, with proportions in 1875 estimated by George Darwin at 3.5% for the middle classes and 4.5 % for the nobility, though this has declined to under 1 % in the 20th century. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were a preeminent example.
The 19th century academic debate on cousin marriage evolved differently in Europe than it did in America. The first-cousin marriage was legal in ancient Rome from at least the Second Punic War (218–201 BC) to its ban by the Christian emperor Theodosius I in 381 AD in the west and until after Justinian (d. 565 AD) in the east.
Early Catholic marriage rules forced a sharp change from earlier norms in order to deny heirs to the wealthy and therefore increase the chance they would will their property to the Church.
Middle East
The Middle East has uniquely high rates of cousin marriage among the world's regions. Saudi Arabia, have rates of marriage to first or second cousins that may exceed 50%, Iraq was estimated in one study to have a rate of 33%, and figures for Iran and Afghanistan have been estimated in the range of 30–40%. Though on the lower end, Egypt and Turkey nevertheless have rates above 20%.
All states in the Persian Gulf currently require advance genetic screening for all prospective married couples. Qatar was the last Gulf nation to institute mandatory screening in 2009, mainly to warn related couples who are planning marriage about any genetic risks they may face. The current rate of cousin marriage there is 54%, an increase of 12–18% over the previous generation. A report by the Dubai-based Centre for Arab Genomic Studies (CAGS) in September 2009 found that Arabs have one of the world's highest rates of genetic disorders, nearly two-thirds of which are linked to consanguinity. Research from CAGS and others suggests consanguinity is declining in Lebanon and Egypt and among Palestinians, but is increasing in Morocco, Mauritania and Sudan.
Dr. Ahmad Teebi, a genetics and pediatrics professor at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, links the increase in cousin marriage in Qatar and other Gulf states to tribal tradition and the region's expanding economies. "Rich families tend to marry rich families, and from their own – and the rich like to protect their wealth," he said. "So it's partly economic, and it's also partly cultural." In regard to the higher rates of genetic disease in these societies, he says: "It's certainly a problem," but also that "The issue here is not the cousin marriage, the issue here is to avoid the disease."
Cousin marriage rates from most African nations outside the Middle East are unknown. It is however estimated that 35–50% of all sub-Saharan African populations either prefers or accept cousin marriages. In Nigeria, the most populous country of Africa, the three largest tribes in order of size are the Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo. Muslim Hausa practice cousin marriage preferentially, and polygamy is allowed if the husband can support multiple wives. Divorce can be accomplished easily by either the male or the female, but females must then remarry. Even for a man, lacking a spouse is looked down upon. Baba of Karo's first of four marriages was to her second cousin. She recounts in the book that her good friend married the friend's first cross cousin.
The Yoruba people are split between Islam and Christianity. A 1974 study analyzed Yoruba marriages in the town Oka Akoko, finding that among a sample of marriages having an average of about three wives. These included not only cousin marriages but also uncle-niece unions. Reportedly it is a custom that in such marriages at least one spouse must be a relative, and generally such spouses were the preferred or favourite wives in the marriage and gave birth to more children. Finally, the Igbo people of southern Nigeria specifically prohibit both parallel- and cross-cousin marriage, though polygamy is common. Men are forbidden to marry within their own patrilineage or those of their mother or father's mother and must marry outside their own village. Igbo are almost entirely Christian, having converted heavily under colonialism
In Ethiopia the ruling Christian Amhara people were historically rigidly opposed to cousin marriage, and could consider up to third cousins the equivalent of brother and sister, with marriage at least ostensibly prohibited out to sixth cousins. A man marrying a former wife's "sister" was seen as incest, and conversely for a woman and her former husband's "brother." Though Muslims make up over a third of the Ethiopian population, and Islam has been present in the country since the time of Muhammad, cross-cousin marriage is very rare among most Ethiopian Muslims.
South Asia
Attitudes in India on cousin marriage vary by region and culture. For Muslims it is acceptable and legal to marry a first cousin but for Hindus it may be illegal under the 1955 Hindu Marriage Act, though the specific situation is more complex. The Hindu Marriage Act makes cousin marriage illegal for Hindus with the exception of marriages permitted by regional custom. Cousin marriage is proscribed and seen as incest for Hindus in north India. In fact it may even be unacceptable to marry within one's village or for two siblings to marry partners from the same village but in south India it is common for Hindu's to marry cross cousins, with matrilateral cross-cousin (mother's brother's daughter) marriages being especially favoured. In Mumbai, studies done in 1956 showed 7.7% of Hindus married to a second cousin or closer in contrast to the northern city of New Delhi where only 0.1% of Hindus were married to a first cousin during the 1980s.
India's Muslim minority represents about 12% of its population (excluding Jammu and Kashmir) and has an overall rate of cousin marriage of 22% according to a 2000 report. Most Muslim cousin marriages were between first cousins with a rate of 20%.
United Kingdom
There has been a great deal of debate in the past few years in the United Kingdom about whether to discourage cousin marriages through government public relations campaigns or ban them entirely. The debate has been prompted by a Pakistani immigrant population making up 1.5% of the British population, of whom about 55% marry a first cousin. There is evidence that the rate of cousin marriage has increased among British Pakistanis from rates in their parents' generation. Most British Pakistani marriages are arranged, but these can be of two types: conventionally arranged marriages where the bride and groom have little or no say, and what some British Pakistanis describe as "arranged love marriages" where the bride and groom play an important role.
Other regions
In the East, South Korea is especially restrictive with bans on marriage out to third cousins, with all couples having the same surname and region of origin having been prohibited from marrying until 1997. Taiwan, North Korea, and the Philippines also prohibit first-cousin marriage. It is allowed in Japan, though the incidence has declined in recent years. China has banned it since passing its 1981 Marriage Law, yet there is a conspicuous lack of data on actual cousin marriage rates there.
Recent 2001 data for Brazil indicates a rate of cousin marriage of 1.1%, down from 4.8% in 1957. For example, in São Paulo in the mid-19th century the rate of cousin marriage apparently was 16%, but a century later it was merely 1.9%.
Social aspects of cousin marriages
People may think that cousin marriages are more common among those of low socioeconomic status, among the illiterate and uneducated, and in rural areas due to the dowries and bridewealths that exist, but some societies also report a high prevalence among land-owning families and the ruling elite: here the relevant consideration is thought to be keeping the family estate intact over generations.
In South Asia, rising demands for dowry payments have caused economic hardship and have been linked to "dowry deaths" in a number of North Indian states. The increasing number of cousin marriages in the West may also occur as a result of immigration from Asia and Africa and some observers have concluded that the only new forces that could discourage such unions are government bans like the one China enacted in 1981.
In April 2002, the Journal of Genetic Counseling released a report which estimated the average risk of birth defects in a child born of first cousins at 1.7–2.8% over an average base risk for non-cousin couples of 3%, or about the same as that of any woman over age 40. In terms of mortality, a 1994 study found a mean excess pre-reproductive mortality rate of 4.4%, while another study published in 2009 suggests the rate may be closer to 3.5%. Put differently, first-cousin marriage entails a similar increased risk of birth defects and mortality as a woman faces when she gives birth at age 41 rather than at 30. Critics argue that banning first-cousin marriages would make as much sense as trying to ban childbearing by older women.
In Pakistan, where there has been cousin marriage for generations and the current rate may exceed 50%, one study estimated infant mortality at 12.7 % for married double first cousins, 7.9 % for first cousins, 9.2 % for first cousins once removed/double second cousins, 6.9 % for second cousins, and 5.1 percent among nonconsanguineous progeny. Among double first cousin progeny, 41.2 % of prereproductive deaths were associated with the expression of detrimental recessive genes, with equivalent values of 26.0, 14.9, and 8.1 % for first cousins, first cousins once removed/double second cousins, and second cousins respectively.
For example because the entire Amish population is descended from only a few hundred 18th century German-Swiss settlers, the average coefficient of inbreeding between two random Amish is higher than between two non-Amish second cousins. First-cousin marriage is taboo among Amish but they still suffer from several rare genetic disorders. In Ohio's Geagua County, Amish make up only about 10 % of the population but represent half the special needs cases. Similar disorders have been found in the highly polygamous FLDS, who do allow first-cousin marriage and of whom 75 to 80 % are related to two 1930s founders.
A BBC report reported about Pakistanis in Britain where 55% of whom had married a first cousin and many children come from repeat generations of first-cousin marriages. The report stated that these children were 13 times more likely than the general population to produce children with genetic disorders, and one in ten children of first-cousin marriages in Birmingham either died in infancy or would develop a serious disability. The BBC story contained an interview with Myra Ali, whose parents and grandparents were all first cousins. She has a very rare recessive genetic condition, known as Epidermolysis bullosa which will cause her to lead a life of extreme physical suffering, limited human contact and probably an early death from skin cancer. Knowing that cousin marriages increase the probability of recessive genetic conditions, she is against the practice. Finally, in 2010 the Telegraph reported that cousin marriage among the British Pakistani community resulted in 700 children being born every year with genetic disabilities.
The increased mortality and birth defects observed among British Pakistanis may, however, have another source besides current consanguinity. Genetic effects from cousin marriage in Britain are more obvious than in a developing country like Pakistan because the number of confounding environmental diseases is lower. Increased focus on genetic disease in developing countries may eventually result from progress in eliminating environmental diseases there as well.
Public Health in Norway published in March 2007 a research on intermarriage in Norway. The report identifies both the prevalence of intermarriage and the medical consequences for the children. The analysis was done on the basis of data from the Medical Birth Registry, Statistics Norway, Population Register and the Cause of Death Register of data for all persons born in Norway from 1967 to 2005 because Norway is the only country in the world that keeps the statistic numbers between the parents of all born babies. These were the key findings:
Prevalence of intermarriage:
- In Norway, the most widespread intermarriage can be found among people of Pakistani origin. In first-generation immigrants from Pakistan intermarriage is 43.9% of all children born of parents who are cousins, and the total intermarriage ratio is 54.4%.
- Among the descendants of first generation immigrants from Pakistan, the proportion of cousin pairs 35.1%, and the total intermarriage ratio 46.5%. Interbreeding units are therefore somewhat lower than in the parental generation.
- Intermarriage-shares seem to be heading down in the Norwegian-Pakistani population, both first generation immigrants and descendants.
- Intermarriage is relatively common also among people with origins from Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Sri Lanka, Morocco and Somalia.
- For people of Norwegian origin, intermarriage is very rare, but it used to be more common a few decades back. This particularly applies to second cousin marriages. In those of Norwegian origin is 0.1% of parental pairs cousins and second cousins 0.4% (in the period from 1967 to 2005).
Medical risks of intermarriage
Intermarriage leads to increased risk of stillbirth, infant death and congenital malformations. In addition, there is an increased risk of death right up to adulthood among children of intermarried parents.
For children of cousin marriage is the increase of risk in the following order:
- Stillbirth: 60%
- Deaths during the first year: 150%
- Congenital malformations: 100%
- Deaths from the age of one year and up to adulthood: 75%
These findings are statistically reliable, and not the result of random variation.
The significance of intermarriage for public health
Since intermarriage is rare in the population as a whole, intermarriage does little for public health in Norway, however, it is a major cause of illness and death among children in the country groups where intermarriage is common.
One must always bear in mind that most children of intermarriage, marriage is healthy and completely normal. Illness and death affects only a small minority of them.
Jewish communities affected by Tay-Sachs
Tay–Sachs disease (TSD, also known as GM2 gangliosidosis or Hexosaminidase A deficiency) is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder. In its most common variant, known as infantile Tay–Sachs disease, it causes a relentless deterioration of mental and physical abilities that commences around 6 months of age and usually results in death by the age of 4. Tay-Sachs is caused by a genetic defect in a single gene with one defective copy of that gene inherited from each parent. The disease occurs when harmful quantities of gangliosides accumulate in the nerve cells of the brain, eventually leading to the premature death of those cells. There is currently no cure or treatment but the Tay–Sachs disease is rare.
Tay-Sachs disease was named after British ophthalmologist Warren Tay, who first described the red spot on the retina of the eye in 1881, and the American neurologist Bernard Sachs of Mount Sinai Hospital, New York who described the cellular changes of Tay-Sachs and noted an increased prevalence in the Eastern European Jewish (Ashkenazi) population in 1887. Research in the late 20th century demonstrated that Tay–Sachs disease is caused by a genetic mutation on the HEXA gene on chromosome 15. These mutations reach significant frequencies in several populations. French Canadians of southeastern Quebec have a carrier frequency similar to Ashkenazi Jews, but they carry a different mutation. Many Cajuns of southern Louisiana carry the same mutation that is most common in Ashkenazi Jews. Most HEXA mutations are rare, and do not occur in genetically isolated populations. The disease can potentially occur from the inheritance of two unrelated mutations in the HEXA gene.
Millions of Ashkenazi Jews have been screened as Tay-Sachs carriers since carrier testing began in 1971. Jewish communities, both in and outside of Israel, embraced the cause of genetic screening from the 1970s on and the increasing number of Tay–Sachs disease led Israel to become the first country to offer free genetic screening and counseling for all couples making Israel a leading center for research on genetic disease. Both the Jewish and Arab/Palestinian populations in Israel contain many ethnic and religious minority groups, and Israel's initial success with Tay–Sachs disease has led to the development of screening programs for other diseases.
Tay-Sachs has sometimes created an impression that Jews are more susceptible to genetic disease than other populations. Sheila Rothman and Sherry Brandt-Rauf, of Columbia University's Center for the Study of Society and Medicine, have criticized this emphasis on ethnic identity in the study of disease. When several breast cancer mutations were discovered in the 1990s, the TSD model was applied, both consciously and inadvertently. Researchers had initially focused on breast cancer cluster families, not on ethnic groups. But because thousands of stored DNA samples were available from Tay-Sachs screening, researchers were quickly able to estimate the frequency of newly discovered mutations in Ashkenazi Jewish populations.
Inbreeding in the Royal and Nobel families
The family relationships of royalty are usually well known to be highly inbreeded. Royal intermarriage was mostly practised to protect property, wealth, and position.
- In ancient Egypt, royal women carried the bloodlines and so it was advantageous for a pharaoh to marry his sister or half-sister. Normally the old ruler's eldest son and daughter (who could be either siblings or half-siblings) became the new rulers. All rulers of the Ptolemaic dynasty from Ptolemy II were married to their brothers and sisters, to keep the Ptolemaic blood "pure" and to strengthen the line of succession. Cleopatra VII (also called Cleopatra VI) and Ptolemy XIII, who married and became co-rulers of ancient Egypt following their father's death, are the most widely known example of brother and sister marriage.
The family-tree of Charles II of Spain shows an extraordinary number of uncle-niece and cousin unions of varying degrees that can be seen on the picture.
Click at the picture for a larger image
- Among European monarchies Jean V of Armagnac formed a rare brother-sister relationship. Also other royal houses, such as the Wittelsbachs had marriages among aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews. The British royal family had several marriages as close as the first cousin, but none closer.
- The most famous example of a genetic disorder aggravated by royal family intermarriage was the House of Habsburg, which inmarried particularly often. Famous in this case is the Habsburg jaw/Habsburg lip/Austrian lip typical for many Habsburg relatives over a period of 6 centuries. The condition progressed through the generations to the point that the last of the Spanish Habsburgs, Charles II of Spain, could not properly chew his food.
- Besides the jaw deformity, Charles II also had a huge number of other genetic physical, intellectual, sexual, and emotional problems. It is speculated that the simultaneous occurrence in Charles II of two different genetic disorders: combined pituitary hormone deficiency and distal renal tubular acidosis could explain most of the complex clinical profile of this king, including his impotence/infertility which in the last instance led to the extinction of the dynasty.
- The most famous genetic disease that circulated among European royalty was haemophilia. Because the progenitor, Queen Victoria, was in a first cousin marriage, it is often mistakenly believed that the cause was consanguinity, however, this disease is generally not aggravated by cousin marriages, although rare cases of haemophilia in girls (though not including Victoria) are thought to result from the union of haemophilic men and their cousins.
- Intermarriage within European royal families has declined in relation to the past. Inter-nobility marriage was used as a method of forming political alliances among elite power-brokers and these ties were often sealed only upon the birth of progeny within the arranged marriage. Marriage was seen as a union of lines of nobility, not of a contract between individuals as it is seen today.
- Some Peruvian Sapa Incas married their sisters. The Inca had an unwritten rule that the new ruler must be a son of the Inca and his wife and sister. He then had to marry his sister (not half-sister), which ultimately led to the catastrophic Huáscar's reign, culminating in a civil war and then fall of the empire.
Royal dyslexia
When we look at the Norwegian history, marriage between cousins was rare and attempted to be prohibited in 1687 but the exception was the royals. They married relatives to build alliances, and ensure values and positions. It is not different from the today's cousin marriages except the only difference was that the royal house had a stronger fundamental superstructure that was at the family's superiority. Monarchical thinking assumes that your place in society is God-given and that your family is predetermined.
King Olav V and Queen Maud of Norway
To keep the heritage in their own hands, the Spanish Habsburgs started to marry more and more within the family. The result was that the lethal inbreeding within a few generations brought the male succession to destruction with 11 royal marriages in 200 years. 9 of these were intermarriages including two marriages between uncles and nieces and four between cousins. As a consequence of this, the Habsburgs suffered stillbirths and deaths of babies. Between 1527 and 1661 there was born 34 children and of these, 10 died before the age of 1 year. Another 17 died before the age of 10.
The Habsburgs last king, Carlos II, was born in 1661 and the Spaniards called him El hechizado, the enchanted. He had a large head and was relatively weak as a baby. He did not learn to speak before he turned four, and learned to walk when he was eight years old and stayed weak and very thin. His first and second wife claimed he was impotent and he would vomit and suffer from diarrhea. As a 30-year-old, King Carlos looked like he was an old man. He also couldn't manage to bring an heir so the Halsburg Dynasty died with him in 1700.
Scientists have calculated that 25.4% of his gene variants were inherited in double dose and they believe he was hit by two genetic diseases that today are known as CPHD and distal renal tubular acidos (dRTA).
The Danish royal house was struggling with similar problems. Early in the 1800s did not King. Several diseases spread in the European royal houses of the 1800s and the British Queen Victoria's descendants were affected by haemophilia resulting in her son Leopold death of the disease as 30-year-old. Her daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Alice brought the disease to the European royal houses.
Porphyria is another "royal disease" and the British king George III (1760 to 1820) was known as "Mad George" for his madness. Two professors of molecular genetics, Martin Warren and David Hunt of the University of London, examined in the book Purple Secret (1998) a thesis that George III's illness was porphyria. They followed "Mad George" s genes down to today's royals, and estimated that the Queen's cousin William, who died in 1972, suffered from the disease. Also porphyria was brought further into the European royal families.
Norwegian Princess Astrid has been open to and told how she has experienced it to be dyslexic, like King Olaf was and the Princess' five children also struggling with this problem.
In contrast, Swedish King Carl Gustaf, the Crown Princess Victoria and her brother Prince Carl Philip has been open with the disorder.
Camilla Stoltenberg of Public Health in Norway explains:
"If you inherit the gene from one parent, you may get a slight degree of the condition. Inherit it from both mother and father, the stronger the disposition, and then you can get a more serious disorder." What then is the relationship between intermarriage and dyslexia?
"The chance that you get two identical copies of a gene is higher. This is also true for genes that predispose to dyslexia. And since dyslexia is probably conditioned by many genes, it is also a greater chance that you may have received two copies of several of the dysleksidisponerende genes," she says.


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Sport New Zealand has begun a project which aims to use the power of sport to help kids achieve in the classroom and the community.
?Every day we see the power of sport to change the lives of young people and to help them succeed in other aspects of life. This project will harness that power for schools to get the results they want in their communities,? said Sport New Zealand Chief Executive, Peter Miskimmin to launch the project.
Eight secondary schools from around the country have been chosen to take part in the new initiative designed to improve academic and social outcomes by using sport as a context for learning and student engagement.
The schools selected for the Sport New Zealand initiative are:
- Aotea College, Wellington
- Hillmorton High School, Christchurch
- Howick College, Auckland
- Kaikorai Valley College, Dunedin
- Papakura High School, Auckland
- Queen?s High School, Dunedin
- Tauranga Boys? College, Tauranga
- Te Kuiti High School, Te Kuiti
As well as focusing on improving academic and social outcomes for students and schools, the three-year initiative also aims to increase the number of participants in school sport (both playing and coaching) and better connect secondary schools to their surrounding communities such as neighbouring primary schools and sports clubs.
?We know from our recently released Young People?s Survey that sport really resonates with young people so it makes sense to use that enthusiasm and passion for sport, to help students excel in the classroom and the community.
?When you combine the level of interest we?ve had from secondary schools throughout the country with the breadth of agencies eager to collaborate on this initiative, it?s clear that the potential of the ?Sport in Education? project is significant,? added Mr Miskimmin.
?Sport in Education? has the support and involvement of the Ministry of Education, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, New Zealand Council for Educational Research, New Zealand Secondary Schools Sports Council and New Zealand Olympic Committee. It will also draw upon the success and knowledge gained from a similar project that has been hugely successful in the UK that now includes over 550 schools.
The initial eight participating secondary schools were selected from 41 that expressed an interest to be involved, with the final selection offering an ideal balance across a range of criteria including decile, geographic location, roll size and demographics and current academic performance.
Working groups are now being created across five work-streams including curriculum development, student leadership and sporting links. Resources will subsequently be developed that will be customised to meet the needs of the participating schools, with roll-out commencing in Term One, 2013.
The resources will progressively be made available to not only the network of participating schools, but also those schools that missed selection and ultimately to all secondary schools throughout the country.