Suicide Trends and Prevention in Nevada

Suicide has been around for as long as human society and it continues to challenge our collective wisdom. Consider this data provided by the National Institute of Medicine: Each year about one million people commit suicide worldwide. Every year some 30,000 Americans end their lives by suicide, and approximately 650,000 people receive emergency treatment after attempting suicide. Every 41 seconds someone in the U.S. attempts suicide; every 16.7 minutes, someone completes suicide; and every day over 85 people die by suicide. Suicide is the eighth leading cause of death in the U.S. and the third leading cause of death among American youths. Over the last 100 years, suicide in the U.S. has out-numbered homicide by at least 3 to 2. Almost 4 times as many Americans died by suicide during the Vietnam War era as died in the course of military action

Suicide Trends and Prevention in Nevada

Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States. In 2007, nearly 35,000 Americans took their own lives, a rate of 11.5 suicides per 100,000 (Xu et al. 2010). Among 15-24 year olds, suicide is the third leading cause of death and for those aged 25-34, it is the second leading cause (CDC WISQARS 2007)

Supportive Programs and Financial Aid: Measuring Their Impact on Retention of Blacks and Latinx College Students in the New England Region

Enrollment in U.S. Higher Educational Institutions has declined over the last decade. Research on student retention suggests that the type of financial aid offered is related to student retention, as does the number of student support programs offered to students from different demographic backgrounds. Is there evidence that these factors are associated with student retention levels in the New England Region? We performed a T-test and Regression Analysis to examine these questions. Results provide evidence that need-based aid and the number of student support programs are positively associated with retention levels for Blacks, Latinx, and White students in this region

The Euro Crisis and the Job Guarantee: A Proposal for Ireland

Euroland is in a crisis that is slowly but surely spreading from one periphery country to another; it will eventually reach the center. The blame is mostly heaped upon supposedly profligate consumption by Mediterraneans. But that surely cannot apply to Ireland and Iceland. In both cases, these nations adopted the neoliberal attitude toward banks that was pushed by policymakers in Europe and America, with disastrous results. The banks blew up in a speculative fever and then expected their governments to absorb all the losses. The situation was similar in the United States, but in our case the debts were in dollars and our sovereign currency issuer simply spent, lent, and guaranteed 29 trillion dollars’ worth of bad bank decisions. Even in our case it was a huge mistake - but it was 'affordable'. Ireland and Iceland were not so lucky, as their bank debts were in 'foreign' currencies. By this I mean that even though Irish bank debt was in euros, the Government of Ireland had given up ist own currency in favor of what is essentially a foreign currency - the euro, which is issued by the European Central Bank (ECB). Every euro issued in Ireland is ultimately convertible, one to one, to an ECB euro. There is neither the possibility of depreciating the Irish euro nor the possibility of creating ECB euros as necessary to meet demands for clearing. Ireland is in a situation similar to that of Argentina a decade ago, when it adopted a currency board based on the US dollar. And yet the authorities demand more austerity, to further reduce growth rates. As both Ireland and Greece have found out, austerity does not mean reduced budget deficits, because tax revenues fall faster than spending can be cut. Indeed, as I write this, Athens has exploded in riots. Is there an alternative path? In this piece I argue that there is. First, I quickly summarize the financial foibles of Iceland and Ireland. I will then - also quickly - summarize the case for debt relief or default. Then I will present a program of direct job creation that could put Ireland on the path to recovery. Understanding the financial problems and solutions puts the jobs program proposal in the proper perspective: a full implementation of a job guarantee cannot occur within the current financial arrangements. Still, something can be done

Report from the First Snake Genomics and Integrative Biology Meeting

This report summarizes the proceedings of the 1st Snake Genomics and Integrative Biology Meeting held in Vail, CO USA, 5-8 October 2011. The meeting had over twenty registered participants, and was conducted as a single session of presentations. Goals of the meeting included coordination of genomic data collection and fostering collaborative interactions among researchers using snakes as model systems.Organismic and Evolutionary Biolog

Report from the First Snake Genomics and Integrative Biology Meeting

This report summarizes the proceedings of the 1st Snake Genomics and Integrative Biology Meeting held in Vail, CO USA, 5-8 October 2011. The meeting had over twenty registered participants, and was conducted as a single session of presentations. Goals of the meeting included coordination of genomic data collection and fostering collaborative interactions among researchers using snakes as model systems

From Aberfan to the ‘Canvey Factor’: schools, children and industrial disasters

Children, and schools, are potent symbols of victimhood in industrial disasters. In the case of historical industrial disasters such as Aberfan and Flixborough, and in terms of preparation for future industrial disasters under Control of Major Accident Hazard regulations, communities are seen as passive responders to accidents. Moreover, following industrial accidents, communities are frequently accused of culpability or profiting from the disaster. There is hence a double pathologisation in play, with communities seen as comprising passive victims and manipulative survivors. Using an historical approach, the official accounts of the Aberfan and Flixborough industrial accidents are challenged with a focus on schools and children. Rather than being passive victims of these accidents, schools and children demonstrated agency in terms of their tacit knowledge, reporting potential accidents and recording their consequences. This provides a lens through which to interrogate current policy on industrial safety as it relates to schools and communities

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead