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Thursday, July 5, 2012

Japan returns to nuclear power after shutdown

Kyodo / Reuters

Kansai Electric Power Co's Ohi nuclear power plant No. 3 unit, second from left, is seen in Ohi, Fukui prefecture on Sunday.

By Reuters

TOKYO - Japan ended two months without nuclear power on Thursday when the No. 3 unit at Kansai Electric Power Co's Ohi plant became the first reactor to resume supplying electricity to the grid since a nationwide safety shutdown after the Fukushima disaster.

Japan's last working reactor was idled in early May, leaving the country without nuclear power for the first time since 1970.The rest of the 50 reactors had already been halted for maintenance and safety checks to see if they could withstand an earthquake and tsunami similar to the disaster that devastated Tokyo Electric Power's Fukushima Daiichi plant in March 2011, causing the worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.

The government approved the restart of the No. 3 and No.4 Ohi units in western Japan to avoid a possible summer power crunch. But public safety concerns over nuclear power remain deep, with surveys showing about 70 percent of voters want the country to ditch nuclear eventually.

A panel appointed by parliament to probe the causes of the Fukushima disaster and assess problems with the often-chaotic response, is to issue a final report later on Thursday.

Japan approves reactor restarts, more seen

Kansai Electric, Japan's second biggest utility, said it began generating power from the 1,180-megawatt No.3 Ohi reactor at 5 percent of capacity at 7 a.m. on Thursday (6 p.m. EDT on Wednesday) as scheduled, four days after the unit was restarted.

The No. 3 unit is expected to reach full-capacity output around July 9-10. Its sister unit, the 1,180-MW No.4 Ohi reactor, is scheduled to resume operations between July 18-20, start power output from July 21-25 and reach full-capacity generation from July 25-30, a company spokesman said.

Cleanup continues after last year's 9.0 earthquake and tsunami destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northern Japan. The government is still trying to establish its role in TEPCO and people in Tokyo, who felt the tremors, are concerned the c...

Restarting the two reactors will help reduce fossil fuel consumption since utilities have been meeting the power gap created by the shutdown of all 50 reactors, with capacity of 46,148 MW, by firing up plants using costly fuel, especially gas and oil.

Before the Fukushima crisis, Japan relied on nuclear power for about 30 percent of its electricity and was the world's third-biggest user after the United States and France.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

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Source: http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/04/12568246-japan-returns-to-nuclear-power-after-shutdown-prompted-by-fukushima-disaster?lite

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Wednesday, July 4, 2012

iPad mini rumors resurface like so many leftovers, have production start in September

There have been rumors of a shrunken iPad since time immemorial, so you'll have to forgive us if we look at most fresh claims with a jaded eye. Still, when both Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal hear that Apple is close to producing a tablet with an 8-inch or smaller screen, there might be some fire to go with the smoke. What details that exist are unsurprisingly thin outside of the dimensions, although Bloomberg understands that there won't be a Retina display like in the current 9.7-inch slab. That's not a shock given the size and likely cost concerns -- we're more interested in the talk of nearing production plans with an uncanny level of synchronicity. The Wall Street Journal has caught murmurs that volume production ramps up in September, while its business paper rival Bloomberg thinks that an announcement could come "by October." We still won't be shocked if these are just wild misinterpretations of an upsized iPod touch or become nothing but vapor. Should they pan out, however, our good friend the Nexus 7 could feel some heat this fall.

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/04/ipad-mini-rumors-resurface-like-so-many-leftovers/

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Susie Sampson: Health Care and Our Independence... Day:)

Last week was quite a doozy! I know how disappointed we all were to see that Obamacare was approved as Constitutional. I mean, the GOP is just tryin' to help with population control! We're lookin' out for the world. Besides, I think Roberts was just kiddin.' Maybe he's testin' us... like Jesus. Regardless, I hope you all have a great Independence Day!

Contact: SusieSampsonUSA@gmail.com

Follow Susie Sampson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SusieSampson

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susie-sampson/healthcare-and-our-indepe_b_1645342.html

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Chuck E. Cheese being replaced with hipper image

NEW YORK (AP) ? Chuck E. Cheese has been given the pink slip.

The company that operates the chain of children's pizza restaurants is retiring the giant rodent's outdated image ? and the man who voiced its character for nearly two decades. CEC Entertainment Inc. says it plans to launch a national ad campaign Thursday with a revamped image of Chuck E. Cheese as a hip, electric-guitar-playing rock star.

It's just the latest makeover for the 35-year-old mascot, which started life as a New Jersey rat who sometimes carried a cigar.

CEC Entertainment, based in Irving, Texas, is struggling to revive sales at its more than 500 pizza restaurants, which offer games, prizes and a musical variety musical show.

In May, CEC said revenue at its locations open at least a year fell 4.2 percent in the first quarter. The company also lowered its outlook for the year, citing factors such as higher prices for cheddar cheese and rent.

According to ShowbizPizza.com, a Chuck E. Cheese fan site, the man who voiced the mascot in commercials since 1993 learned of his replacement only after coming across "Chuck's Hot New Single" online and realizing it was sung by someone else. The fan site this week published a Facebook post by Duncan Brannan, the mascot's former voice.

Brannan could not be reached for comment. But in the post, he writes that part of his assignment when he first took on the role was to transform Chuck E. Cheese from "a joke-telling, sometime off-color New Jersey rat" to a lovable, mainstream mouse.

He notes that there were various signs in recent months that suggested he was being pushed out, but that he was assured by the company that he was still the voice of Chuck E.

The Facebook post was republished by The Dallas Observer this week.

CEC Entertainment says that Brannan wasn't fired but that it simply "chose to utilize new voice talent."

The new Chuck E. Cheese that launches this week will be voiced by Jaret Reddick, the lead singer for the pop-punk bank Bowling for Soup. The Chuck E. Cheese Facebook page now shows a silhouette of a cartoon mouse playing a guitar.

The first Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre location opened in 1977 in San Jose, Calif. According to ShowbizPizza.com, the founders originally considered calling the restaurant "Rick Rat's Pizza" but a PR agency figured a rat would be a bad mascot for a pizza chain.

The name Chuck E. Cheese was selected because it downplayed the mascot's species and forced people to smile when they said it, according to the site. The chain was founded by Nolan Bushnell, who also co-founded Atari and Pong.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2012-07-03-Chuck%20E%20Cheese-Makeover/id-506ac59afb54416fa621061c3db2b64f

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J&J seeks OK for first drug against resistant TB

FILE- In this Monday, July 17, 2006 file photo, a technician at Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company, works in a "sterile filling" room at the plant in Raritan, N.J. Johnson & Johnson said Monday, July 2, 2012, that it is seeking U.S. approval for the first new type of medicine to fight deadly tuberculosis in more than four decades AP Photo/Mike Derer, File)

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) ? Johnson & Johnson said Monday that it is seeking U.S. approval for the first new type of medicine to fight deadly tuberculosis in more than four decades.

The experimental drug, called bedaquiline, also would be the first medicine specifically for treating multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis. That's an increasingly common form in which at least two of the four primary TB drugs don't work.

Tuberculosis, caused by bacterial infection of the lungs and other body areas, is the world's No. 2 killer of adults among infectious diseases.

J&J's Janssen Research & Development unit created the drug, which was tested in several hundred patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in two mid-stage studies lasting for six months. Some patients were studied for about 1 1/2 years.

The company this fall is to begin late-stage testing that will compare bedaquiline to dummy pills over nine months in about 600 patients; each will also take six other drugs that are the standard treatments for tuberculosis. That study is aimed at seeing whether treatment for resistant tuberculosis can be reduced to nine months from the current 18 to 24 months recommended by the World Health Organization.

Roughly one-third of the world's population is estimated to be infected with the bacteria causing tuberculosis. It remains latent in most people for many years but can be activated by another infection or serious health problem.

TB is rare in the U.S. but kills about 1.4 million people a year worldwide, with about 150,000 of those succumbing to the increasingly common multidrug-resistant forms.

Janssen's head of infectious diseases, Dr. Wim Pays, said the company will also apply for approval of bedaquiline in other countries where TB is very common.

The disease is a serious problem in developing countries because it takes so long to cure and many patients stop taking their pills once they begin to feel better. That helps bacteria still alive in the patient to develop resistance to the medicines already taken, making future treatment much more difficult.

J&J shares rose 44 cents to close at $68, just shy of their 52-week high of $68.05 set almost a year ago.

___

Linda A. Johnson can be followed at http://twitter.com/LindaJ_onPharma

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2012-07-02-Johnson%20and%20Johnson-TB%20Drug/id-dcf35c2f7f4e49fab9001886185862ba

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Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Constructive Criticisms and Critiques

For those of you who don't know me, I'm Hypnosis, your friendly neighborhood role-player.

I've recently taken a creative writing class, in order to graduate, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I'd like to post some of my writing on here for criticism, and I was wondering if anyone might be willing to give me some; everyone in class was nice about it, but I figured it was the common bond we shared as both writers and peers, and I like that it would be more impersonal on here.

That said, is anyone willing to help me out? If so, you can follow the links I provide to the stories I'll share. There are only two; they can be found here:

Thank you very much, in advance.

~Hypno

"Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live." - Mark Twain

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/Sx2reNY-X80/viewtopic.php

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For smartphone users, work creeps into everything

Tyler Marshall / Getty Images / Rubberball

For workers with mobile e-mail access, work is creeping into everything.

By Allison Linn

We do it in bed. We do it at the dinner table. We even do it on family outings.

Workers with mobile?access admit they check their work e-mail pretty much all the time.

A new survey of 1,000 working adults with mobile e-mail access finds that those who have the ability to check in on work in their off hours are doing so. A lot.

The poll was conducted last May by OnePoll for an e-mail security company called Good Technology.

It found that 50 percent of full-time workers with a smartphone are checking their work e-mail while they're still in bed, and 69 percent won?t go to sleep without checking their work e-mail.

More than half ? 57 percent ? said they are checking work e-mails while on family outings, and 38 percent said they check work e-mails at the dinner table.

The work creep isn?t entirely optional. Almost half said they feel they have no choice but to stay connected during off hours because their customers demand it.

Many dads feeling pressure to 'do it all,' juggling work and family

What's the most inappropriate place to check work e-mail on a mobile device?

Source: http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/02/12525699-for-smartphone-users-work-creeps-into-everything?lite

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