National Pharmacy Association Workbook Brings GPs
And Community Pharmacists Together, UK

post from ZAMP Bionews on 05 November 2008 12:31:47 PM. © ZAMP Bionews

The workbook published by the NPA and the BMA - Improving communication between community pharmacy and general practice - is, as intended, helping to facilitate local dialogue between these two professional groups, with the ultimate aim of improving[...]

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Smartinsulin Insulin That Knows When Its Needed!

post from ZAMP Bionews on 05 November 2008 12:31:01 PM. © ZAMP Bionews

JDRF announces the launch of a £600,000 ($1 million) project to help develop a new type of insulin treatment for people with type 1 diabetes.SmartInsulin is the idea of Dr Todd Zion, the CEO of SmartCells, Inc., a biotechnology company based in the USA.[...]

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NPA Board Meeting - October 2008, UK

post from ZAMP Bionews on 05 November 2008 12:30:17 PM. © ZAMP Bionews

NPA Chairman, Paul Bennett, comments on some of the items discussed at the October 2008 board meeting:1. Pharmacy White Paper - legislative consultation“The NPA Board welcomed publication of the Pharmacy in England white paper earlier this year,[...]

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Black and Decker Codeless Lawn Mower Review

post from Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog on 05 November 2008 12:30:00 PM. © Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog

My old version of this mower just stopped working and the repair guy said it would cost $250 for a new starter, new battery… So I bought a new one: Black & Decker 19-Inch 24-Volt Cordless Electric Mulching Lawn Mower #CMM1200. He said that the new ones were not as well manufactured. I couldn’t imagine how you could make things worse (it is a simple product and just adopting improvement over the years should be really easy).

But, the starter on this model is horrible. You have to tun this incredibly cheap key in a very poorly designed socket. Fails over 80% of the time. The old model started easily essentially every time. The design was just as you would expect, foolproof. Whatever pointy haired boss approved this design needs to go into another line of work.

The ability of the mower to cope with high grass is very poor - much worse than the previous model. I had a good test at first given the time between my mower breaking and getting the new one. Not often an issue, but still not a good thing.

They had a poor indication of the charge left in the battery previously. They now provide no indication of the charge left. It makes you realize that a poor indication was much better than none.

Battery technology has improved a great deal, and that was one of biggest the weaknesses of the last one. Well they seem to have managed to provide worse battery performance after 5 years of improvement in that technology. Pretty sad.

The bag design is much better than the previous model. You have to assemble it yourself but it is much more sturdy and much better designed - you can replace the fabric and keep the frame. The old model the entire things needed to be replaced if the fabric broke. And given the flimsy design mine broke very early on.

The old model has an extremely cheap hand hold (rubber over the medal to cushion your hands) that broke within months. This one seems to have the same very poor hand holds - that are already breaking.

The new design (again some pointy haired boss decision, I imagine, I sure hope no engineer suggested this) has a flimsy plastic handle that you most hold with 1 hand, or the mower power goes off. The old model had a solid medal bar that either hand could control. This is extremely annoying if you have to maneuver (around bushes, into tight areas…) and don’t have the flexibility to let go with your right hand ever.

The new mower starts shooting grass to the side and even turn off when the bag is less than half full. It seems that the design gets clogged when the bag is half full so that it can take in no more grass. This did not happen on the old mower. I often don’t use the bag but when you do, this is annoying.

Sadly, until some managers leave Toyota and start a company based on the management and engineering principles at Toyota I am not confident any other manufacturer will do any better. It is sad that so many obviously bad engineering decisions can be apparent so quickly and that companies making such decisions actually stay in business.

Electric lawn mowers are definitely preferable for cost, ease of maintenance and environmental reasons to gas mowers. So I will keep using this mower, but it worse than the previous model (the bag seems to be the only improvement), which I find extremely lame. Companies should improve products over time, not go backwards.

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http://engineering.curiouscatblog.net/2008/11/05/black-and-decker-codeless-lawn-m
ower-review/

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Welsh Action Plan To Reduce Suicide And Self-Harm

post from ZAMP Bionews on 05 November 2008 12:29:30 PM. © ZAMP Bionews

A new action plan to reduce suicide and self-harm in Wales was published today by the Welsh Assembly Government. The plan establishes a number of new initiatives and pulls together existing programmes to provide a strategic approach to suicide prevention[...]

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And so it begins…

post from Pharyngula on 05 November 2008 12:20:02 PM. © Pharyngula

We didn't have to wait long for right wing brains to explode into loopy, tangled strands of conspiracy theory nonsense. Creationist brains, already in a state of disarray, are already predisposed to this kind of inanity, so don't be too shocked at what Cynthia Dunbar, creationist, Christian, and member of the Texas State Board of Education has to say:

So we can imagine the blatant disregard for our Constitution, but what other threats does an Obama administration pose? We have been clearly warned by his running mate, Joe Biden, that America will suffer some form of attack within the first 6 months of Obama's administration. However, unlike Joe, I do not believe this "attack" will be a test of Obama's mettle. Rather, I perceive it will be a planned effort by those with whom Obama truly sympathizes to take down the America that is threat to tyranny.

Apparently, Obama is going to have the terrorists he loves so much carry out some awful action, which will excuse the use of martial law and the subsequent abridgment of our constitutional rights. Talk about projection — has she looked at the Bush record since 2001?

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It’s a new day… for Chandrayaan-1

post from Bad Astronomy on 05 November 2008 11:54:00 AM. © Bad Astronomy

The Indian Space Research Organization reports that their Chandrayaan-1 Moon probe has entered what’s called a Lunar Transfer Orbit (or LTO), a path that will take it to the Moon.It has been orbiting the Earth since its launch on October 22.[...]

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ayaan-1/

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MARCH ON BEEKEEPERS, MARCH ON

Hundreds of members of the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA), dressed in beesuits and carrying smokers, swarmed to the U.K. Parliament to deliver a petition to increase research funding on bee health research today. This year, 2 billion bees, or the equivalent of one in three of Britain's honeybee colonies, have been lost over the last 2 months, in the worst losses ever seen in the U.K. The losses have been blamed on colony collapse disorder (CCD).
With CCD, bees "vanish", which is assumed to be the result of sudden early death in the field of large numbers of worker bees. A collapsed colony has a complete absences of adult bees in the colony, with little to no buildup of dead bees. A collapsing colony has an insufficient workforce, mostly made up of young adult bees.
If nothing is done about it, the British honey bee (Apis mellifera) could disappear completely within 10 years, according to the BBKA. "The increased funding we are asking for is a drop in the ocean compared to the billions of pounds the government has found for bank bailouts," said Tim Lovett, the BBKA president. "Bees are probably one of the most economically useful creatures on earth, pollinating a third of all we eat. They provide more than 50 per cent of pollination of wild plants on which birds and mammals depend. We must identify what is killing them, and that means research."
Even Albert Einstein shared the sentiment, with his quote, "No bees, no food for mankind. The bee is the basis for life on this earth."

video details and more

Honey bees and beekeeping have been portrayed quite a bit lately in popular culture. The beekeeper couple on The Amazing Race, Chuck's beekeeping hobby on Pushing Daisies, and the film Bee Movie, which illustrates the important role bees play in ecology. I personally am looking forward to read A Spring without Bees: How Colony Collapse Disorder Has Endangered Our Food Supply by Michael Schacker and Bill McKibben. (Hint: good idea for a Christmas gift).
An article from the Daily Green talks about the efforts of 8 companies and organizations that are truly helping honey bees. Here's the abbreviated form of the list (ie sans descriptions)

Haagen Dazs (helpthehoneybees.com)
Dundee Brewing (dundeeforthebees.com)
Burt's Bees (burtsbees.com)
Project Apis m. (projectapism.org)
California Almond Board
California State Beekeepers Association
American Beekeeping Federation
Eastern Apiculture Society

You can help by buying bee t-shirts from the Haagen Dazs initiative.
You can also watch a video of today's march, here.
Here are some pics from the march:

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http://for-the-love-of-science.blogspot.com/2008/11/march-on-beekeepers-march-on.
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BODC participates in the HUMBOLDT project

post from British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC) on 05 November 2008 11:02:00 AM. © British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC)

The British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC) is participating in the HUMBOLDT project, which will help provide a framework for geo data harmonisation and service integration across Europe.

The objective is to build and test tools to allow organisations to exchange data and information more easily, with the aim of enabling an improved response to disaster management.

More information is available from the BODC HUMBOLDT project pages.

HUMBOLDT and Europe ©

What is BODC's role?

One of the key tasks within the HUMBOLDT project is to test the architecture and tools created. To achieve this objective various scenarios will be developed and applied under realistic conditions, for example: an oil spill in international waters.

BODC's involvement is in adapting an existing operational oil spill model. This is being carried out in collaboration with the National Centre for Ocean Forecasting and will use live feeds of ocean currents and weather provided by the Met Office.

The model will be used to test the software components developed by the HUMBOLDT team in other work packages, focusing on interoperability between oil spill models, thus allowing data and information to be exchanged easily in the event of an international incident.

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