22 veterans commit suicide each day: VA report

By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor

An estimated 22 veterans committed suicide in America each day in 2010, according to a report released Friday by the U.S Department of Veterans Affairs.

That rate has edged higher from 1999 when an estimated 20 veterans took their lives every day, the report noted. In 2007, the veteran suicide pace temporarily dipped to 18 per day.?

Nearly 70 percent of all veteran suicides were among men and women aged 50 or older, the VA said.

"The mental health and well-being of our courageous men and women who have served the nation is the highest priority for VA, and even one suicide is one too many,? VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki said in a news release. ?We have more work to do and we will use this data to continue to strengthen our suicide prevention efforts and ensure all Veterans receive the care they have earned and deserve.?

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The report notes that while the numbers of veterans who die by suicide each day "has remained relatively stable over the past 12 years," the overall percentage of people who die by suicide in America who are veterans has decreased slightly. The share of all suicides reported as "veterans" on state-issued death certificates was 25 percent in 1999 versus slightly more than 20 percent in 2010, according to VA researchers.?

"This provides preliminary evidence that the programs initiated by VA are improving outcomes," read an accompanying "executive summary" signed by Dr. Robert A. Petzel, the VA's under secretary for health. "As long as veterans die by suicide, we must continue to improve and provide even better services and care."

Also Friday, the U.S. Army released its monthly suicide report, offering a preliminary tally for 2012 in that branch: 325 "potential" suicides among active and reserve troops ? the highest number in history, Army officials noted. More than 50 of those deaths remain "under investigation," awaiting a final ruling. If that bleak total remains at 325, the toll in 2012 would have risen by 15 percent over 2011 when the Army sustained 283 suicides.?

Meanwhile, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a nonprofit advocacy group representing more than 200,000 members, said the nation should be "outraged" by rate of veterans who are taking their own lives ? nearly one per hour.?

?This VA suicide report is the most important piece of data to be released since 2007,? said IAVA founder and CEO Paul Rieckhoff. ?Our leaders in Washington need to accelerate efforts to shrink wait times for mental health care and find more creative solutions like the Veteran Crisis Line" ??800-273-TALK.?

"The country should be outraged that we are allowing this tragedy to continue?The trends are headed in the wrong direction,? Rieckhoff added. ?As veterans, we at IAVA understand the spectrum of challenges facing veterans transitioning home, including the struggle with invisible wounds. One thing is clear, we need more research and more collaboration.?

VA leaders vowed "immediate actions" to curb the suicide rate among former service members. The top strategy on the agency's list: A task force ? already established ? that will "provide recommendations for innovating mental health care" within the VA system," VA officials said.?

That panel also has been tasked with "reassessing the value of traditional suicide risk assessments at screening" and "adding ways to identify life stressors and concerns earlier," read Petzel's summary.?

Friday's report also identified female veterans and Vietnam-era veterans as two demographic groups that require extra urgency when it comes to suicidal behaviors. VA officials said they will be developing "additional training programs" to help better target those segments of the U.S. veteran population.?

The veteran-suicide statistics are likely to become a topic on Feb. 13 when the U.S. House Committee on Veterans' Affairs holds a hearing to explore whether veterans are "overcoming barriers to quality mental health care."?

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Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/01/16811249-22-veterans-commit-suicide-each-day-va-report?lite

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Creative Writing Essay: Education-didactic-mathematics

In a student s life , each is confront with various challenges which might require them to think logically and coif decisions which quite a little affect their student life . Students are forever and a day challenged especially when the decisions they make require them to use their critical-thinking analysis susceptibility to make the best decision possible . It is indeed burning(prenominal) for students to enhance and develop their learnings in analyzing when confronted with a quite rocky situationFor students critical thinking analysis skills to be developed , it is wise that at a very early stage of their educational experience they can be open(a) to situations and environment where they can use such skill . With this , the students chance of increasing this eye socket of expertise is highOne of the subjects in which students find it hard in their built-in educational experience is mathematics . It is a common judgement that this subject is difficult to understand .

Probably , the reason why most students find this subject quite difficult is the situation that most of the time students are tasked to solve problems and situations in which they select to think logicallyIn logical thinking , the critical-thinking analysis skill take to be developed . To develop this , the students must be exposed to some situations in which they can exercise such skill . In logical thinking the students must be fit to attack problems in the most intelligent wayIn one s daily living , each may encounter various situations or problems which require one to think logically to come up...If you necessity to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay

If you want to get a full essay, wisit our page: write my essay .

Source: http://creative-writing-essay.blogspot.com/2013/01/education-didactic-mathematics.html

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Mystery surrounding the harnessing of fusion energy unlocked

Jan. 30, 2013 ? The research of a multi-institutional team from the U.S., Japan, and France, led by Predrag S. Krstic of the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences and Jean Paul Allain of Purdue University has answered the question of how the behavior of plasma -- the extremely hot gases of nuclear fusion -- can be controlled with ultra-thin lithium films on graphite walls lining thermonuclear magnetic fusion devices.

"It is remarkable that seemingly insignificant lithium depositions can profoundly influence the behavior of something as powerful as fusion plasmas," Krstic said.

Krstic and his team explain their research in a paper titled "Deuterium Uptake in Magnetic Fusion Devices with Lithium Conditioned Carbon Walls," recently accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters.

"How lithium coatings on graphite surfaces control plasma behavior has largely remained a mystery until our team was able to combine predictions from quantum-mechanical supercomputer simulations on the Kraken and Jaguar systems at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and in situ experimental results from the Purdue group to explain the causes of the delicate tunability of plasma behavior by a complex lithiated graphitic system," Krstic said. "Surprisingly, we find that the presence of oxygen in the surface plays the key role in the bonding of deuterium, while lithium's main role is to bring the oxygen to the surface. Deuterium atoms preferentially bind with oxygen and carbon-oxygen when there is a comparable amount of oxygen to lithium at the surface. That finding well matches a number of controversial experimental results obtained within the last decade."

The performance demands on plasma-facing components and the other materials that would surround future fusion power reactors is one of the reasons the U.S. National Academy of Engineering has ranked the quest for fusion as one of the top grand challenges for engineering in the 21st Century. Harnessing energy from thermonuclear magnetic fusion has been challenged in part by the extreme environment of hot and dense plasma interacting with the boundary fusion reactor walls. The strong coupling between the plasma edge and the wall surface, which causes erosion of the wall material, retention of radioactive tritium, and pollution of the plasma, has been hampered by a lack of fundamental understanding of what takes place at the interface where the plasma and solid material meet.

Recent research in which lithium coatings have been deposited on a variety of metallic and graphitic surfaces has provided evidence that plasma strongly responds on the deposited films. In fact, the use of ultra-thin coatings of lithium on graphite has resulted in an unprecedented influence on plasma behavior, including control of hydrogen recycling -- one of the most important issues in the construction of future magnetic fusion-energy devices -- and extraordinary improvements in energy confinement.

The study of the lithium coatings also impacts many areas beyond magnetic fusion, including nanoelectronics, lithium batteries, computational materials science, bioengineering and biophysics, plasma physics, and theoretical physics and chemistry.

"This work can lead to improvement of the hydrogen-recycling properties of the fusion materials facing plasma, as well as advancements in other areas," Krstic said. "We hope that our finding will inspire future theoretical and experimental work in diverse applications not only with lithium coatings on various materials but also with combinations of other types of materials that are potentially good 'oxygen-getters' -- for example elements of the first two groups of the periodic system."

Authors of the paper are P.S. Krstic, J.P. Allain, C.N. Taylor, J. Dadras, S. Maeda, K. Morokuma, J. Jakowski, A. Allouche, and C.H. Skinner. Support for the project was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE); the National Science Foundation (NSF), including its Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment; and the Japan Science and Technology Agency.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/physics/~3/6yKu_qDJaHA/130131095316.htm

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This Is What the First Lunar Base Could Really Look Like

We have seen many concepts, but this is the most realistic plan yet for humanity's first Moon Base. It will be more efficient and cheaper to build than any other alternative, as it uses 3D printing to quickly transform raw lunar soil into habitable domes. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/9i74dBiB2Tw/this-is-what-the-first-lunar-base-could-really-look-like

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UK baseball season previews: Riddle helps anchor dynamic defense

Editor's note: this is the seventh of a 10-part Kentucky baseball preseason feature, leading up to UK's preseason media day on Feb. 4. Ranked as high as No. 8 in the preseason, Kentucky will open up its 2013 season in Spartanburg, S.C., vs. UNC-Asheville on Feb. 15. Part one (Trevor Gott), part two (Walter Wijas), part three (Matt Reida), part four (Jerad Grundy), part five (Zac Zellers), part six (A.J. Reed), part seven (Austin Cousino).

Kentucky's junior class came to Lexington with three players who had been named the player of the year in the state: Trevor Gott, Corey Littrell and J.T. Riddle.

Each of the three earned a different Kentucky High School Player of the Year award: Gott the Gatorade version, Littrell the Louisville Slugger Player of the Year and Riddle Kentucky High School Coaches Association Mr. Baseball honors.

Flash forward to their junior season in 2013 and each of the three enters the year able to make a strong case that he is the best player, or one of the best players, in the NCAA at his respective position.

Riddle, a native of Frankfort, has been an everyday starter since forcing the coaching staff to find a positional home for him as a true freshman. In 2011, Riddle saw starts at second base and rightfield and showcased what would become his calling card, dynamic defensive ability with jaw-dropping range, arm strength and instincts.

As a freshman Riddle hit .288 in 50 games and 43 starts, with nine doubles, three homers and 25 RBI. After earning all-star starting honors at shortstop in the Great Lakes League during the 2011 summer, Riddle continued his development into a sophomore campaign.

The 6-foot-3, 185-pound left-handed hitter, started all 63 games at second base in 2012, forming a lock-down defensive duo with shortstop Matt Reida. The pair of middle infielders helped the Wildcats shatter the school record for fielding percentage (.976), with both ranking among the UK all-time leaders in defensive assists at their positions.

"It is really the core of our whole defense, to be good up the middle," Riddle said. "Of course the catching position and then the middle infield and the outfield can have a big impact on the type of defensive team you have. Matt and I have played a whole season up the middle together and are now juniors. Because we have played a lot since our freshman year, we have a lot of experience, know what to expect in the SEC. We have both improved so much over the last two years and this past fall."

At the plate as a junior, Riddle hit .279 with 12 doubles, one triple, five homers and 38 RBI, adding a .260 average in 30 SEC games. He finished with 19 two-out hits, 12 two-out RBI and a .347 on-base percentage.

After the year, Riddle continued to break out on the prospect map as a future top-five round MLB Draft pick. He hit .232 in 38 games in the Cape Cod League for Orleans, with seven doubles, two triples, two homers and 15 RBI. Most impressively, Riddle led the Cape Cod League in defensive assists, despite playing second base every day for the Firebirds.

"It was a great experience for me," Riddle said. "It got me away, really for the first time, away from family and friends. Got to play the game, get to know some new friends up there and enjoy the experience of playing against the best college players in the nation. It really helped me improve and realize where I stand at and that I can play with the best of the best."

Riddle returned to Lexington for the fall semester and focused on adding strength to his projectable frame and helping the team build on its great chemistry from 2012.

"It helps so much because baseball is such a team sport," Riddle said. "If you don't have that chemistry then you aren't going to be successful. Last year, the whole team bonded really good, had great chemistry together and we had the best season in the history of the program. Our chemistry is great right now and it needs to stay like that all the way through June."

He had a great fall practice season and is poised to not only continued his success at the plate and in the field, but emerge as a more vocal leader for a preseason top-10 ranked UK club.

Source: http://www.ukathletics.com/blog/2013/01/uk-baseball-season-previews-riddle-helps-anchor-dynamic-defense.html

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Roses, orphanages, dinner parties: Patiala, Punjab | california girl at ...

Our itinerary said today was a rest day ? it ended up being entirely different. (No complaints here.)

We?ve been in our homestays now for a full day. What stands out the most is that nuclear families aren?t so typical in this part of India. Sarah and I are in a beautiful, marble-floored home?where a?husband and wife, their two adult sons, their wives, and their children all live together. The daughters-in-law, Sima and Gudoo, are doing the heavy lifting of the hospitality. Every fourth minute they ask if we want tea, something to eat, a fresh towel, another pillow. I swear they?d give me a baby unicorn if they had one. Maybe I should ask.

After an eggs and toast breakfast and a shower that involved a bucket and measuring cup, our driver arrived to take Sarah and me to meet the rest of our group for our first full day in Punjab. First stop: a college in Patiala, one of the cities in Punjab.

Stage and plaza of the college.

Kate, our resident academic, was the reason for the visit to the school. She works as an archivist at Oklahoma State. The school?s president, a Rotarian, greeted us with bouquets of flowers and ushered us in for tea. Their 3,000 students are pursuing various degrees, from C++ to biochemistry and art.

In light of the international-headline-getting gang rape in Delhi, this caught my eye. Interesting addition to a college campus:
?From woman man is born. Within woman man is conceived. To woman he is engaged and married. Woman becomes his friend; through woman, the future generations come. When woman dies, he seeks another woman; through woman he is related to others. So why call her bad who gives birth even to kings and emperors??

Faculty members took us to a nearby restaurant for lunch. I absolutely owe you all a post on food (and only food), but let me just tell you that the lemon coriander soup I had at lunch today might?ve changed my life. We were told before we left that ice cream in India was exquisite. It was dessert, and ? eh.

After lunch we visited SOS Children?s Home, an orphanage in Punjab. I was fighting back tears yesterday just being told that we?d be visiting it ? so you don?t have to work too hard to imagine what I was like this afternoon. Their concept of an orphanage, though, is beautiful.

The property has 14 individual homes ? bedrooms, kitchens, family areas, and most importantly, a ?mother.? She?s usually a woman who never had children of her own or whose children are grown and gone ? though whatever the reason, she has devoted her life to service to orphans. Children who are abandoned, whose parents have died, or who are simply found orphaned can be brought to SOS and placed in a ?family.?

Sweet boy, and his ?mother? in the background.

Each mother typically cares for 8-10 children at a time, from the day they arrive (what SOS dubs their birthday), until they are old enough to go to college. The children in the home we visited ranged from 8 years old to 20 years old, the oldest two (18 and 20) each with plans to go to college, and all with a mastering of English.

As we left the house, a group of girls on the lawn stopped us, and for 5 perfect minutes sang a traditional Punjabi song. The music, the cool air, the smiles on their faces ? everything about the moment was perfect. And I only had to use one Kleenex. (Kind of a miracle, actually.)

A few of the music-makers.

The day was capped with an enormous dinner party at the home of one of the host Rotarians. There was dancing, games, more flowers, door prizes, and entirely too much food and drink. I?m not sure when the last time I played musical chairs was (my 8^th birthday party, I?m guessing?), but I came real close being the Punjab Musical Chairs Champion. I thought it would be in poor form to shove one of my hosts to get to a chair ? but I?ll admit that I REALLY wanted to. If you?re wondering how good I am at Punjabi dancing, the answer is not very, but if you?ve seen me regular-dance you wouldn?t be at all surprised.

By the numbers:

• Showers taken with a bucket: 1
• Visits to a Turkish toilet: 1
• Pashminas gifted to me: 2
• Shawls gifted to me: 1
• Flower tally: 1 bouquet of roses, 6 marigold necklaces. (They?re like leis, really, but this isn?t Hawaii. I should find out the Punjabi word for them.)
• Passports stolen: 1 (No, not mine. Kate?s purse went missing last night, complete with her passport, phone, and wallet. She?ll be visiting the embassy in Delhi to get it all sorted out. Better now than the day before we leave, I say. And another reason why my passport will stay on my body at all times.)

We have instructions to be ready at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow, but for what I?m not exactly sure. I do know that we?re going to a wedding tomorrow night. I guess it?s good that I have the whole day to work on my dancing?

-lsh-

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Source: http://alamokie.com/2013/01/31/roses-orphanages-dinner-parties-patiala-punjab/

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How owls can spin their heads around

Owls don't need eyes in the back of their heads to see what's behind them ? they can just swivel their heads all the way around. In fact, many owl species, such as the barred owl, can rotate their heads 270 degrees in each direction, which means they can look to the left by rotating all the way to the right, or vice versa.

But how do they do it without severing their arteries or preventing blood from reaching the brain ? An illustrator and a physician at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine teamed up to find out.

"Until now, brain imaging specialists like me who deal with human injuries caused by trauma to arteries in the head and neck have always been puzzled as to why rapid, twisting head movements did not leave thousands of owls lying dead on the forest floor from stroke," said study author Dr. Philippe Gailloud, in a statement from the university.

If humans tried to rotate our heads so rapidly or far, we'd tear the lining of our arteries, which would cause clots to form and lead to a stroke (besides also breaking our necks), he added. "The carotid and vertebral arteries in the neck of most animals ? including owls and humans ? are very fragile and highly susceptible to even minor tears of the vessel lining."

Looking inside owls
To get a glimpse of the owl's blood vessels when their necks were turning, the duo injected dye into the blood vessels of a dozen dead owls and used a CT scan to visualize the shimmering fluid spreading throughout the birds' arteries like blood, said Fabian de Kok-Mercado, who performed the work while getting a master's in medical illustration at Johns Hopkins. (He is now an illustrator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Md.) The researchers then twisted the dead owls' heads to see what happened. [ Video: Watch the owls' necks twist.]

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After creating the CT scan images, the researchers injected a plasticlike substance into the veins of dead snowy, barred and great horned owls and dissected the animals, drawing the routes and locations of the vessels.

They found a number of previously undiscovered and unique traits, de Kok-Mercado told OurAmazingPlanet. For one, the owls' neck bones, or vertebrae, contain holes that are much larger than those found in other birds or humans. In humans, the hole in the vertebra is about the same size as the artery, but in owls the hole is about 10 times larger than the artery, according to the study, published Thursday in the journal Science. These holes, or canals, likely hold air sacks meant to cushion the twisting motion of the head, de Kok-Mercado said.

"We also noticed right away that these canals were absent in the bottom two vertebra of the neck," de Kok-Mercado said. This gives the cordlike vessels some slack when the bird twists its head.

The large holes and "slack" at the bottom of the neck help explain why the vessels don't break. But they don't explain why the supply of blood isn't cut off when an owl turns its head ? with so much twisting, the vessels are bound to become partially blocked.

Blood to the brain
The team noticed that the vertebral artery enlarges slightly as it approaches the brain, which is unusual and not seen in many other animals (like the trunk of a tree, vessels generally get smaller as they get farther from the heart). The authors think that these enlarged areas may function as reservoirs in which blood can pool, so that the brain has extra blood to work with as the head swivels around, de Kok-Mercado said.

The blood vessels near the brain are also highly connected. A vessel called the patent trigeminal artery connects the front and the back of the owl's brain, which helps supply the organ with as much blood as possible.

Why do owls need to crane their necks to such an extreme degree? It's because their eyes are tubular, built almost like telescopes, giving them amazing vision, de Kok-Mercado said. But unlike humans, who have roughly spherical eyes, owls cannot move them about easily, so they have to rotate their heads.

The finding is just another example of how the birds are perfectly adapted to suit their environment, enabling them to see despite having relatively fixed eyes.

"I hope it gives people more of an appreciation of the life on this planet," de Kok-Mercado said.

Reach Douglas Main at dmain@techmedianetwork.com. Follow him on Twitter @Douglas_Main. Follow OurAmazingPlanet on Twitter @OAPlanet. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

? 2012 OurAmazingPlanet. All rights reserved. More from OurAmazingPlanet.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50656939/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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