PFT: NFL rookies get harsh truth at symposium

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At a time when anything mildly controversial brings out the ?I?m sorry to those I offended,? reply, give Torrey Smith credit for being firm in his convictions.

The Ravens wide receiver doesn?t like most Patriots fans, it seems.

Smith has been going back and forth with New Englanders on Twitter for days,?really months, going back to his emotional performance in September after the death of his brother in a motorcycle accident. But the recent volley, according to Aaron Wilson of the Baltimore Sun, has taken it to the next level of internet fights.

When last September?s win over the Patriots was coupled with a playoff win in January, Smith said he got a load of insensitive messages.

?Played a lot of games since my brothers death and I never received as many rude tweets after a win than Sunday,? Smith wrote in January. ?Yet NE fans cry about class.?

Of course, Smith?s not innocent of taunting, remarking that he was pulling for the Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup Finals, and that: ?I hate everything about NE except KG.? (Presumably that?s Kevin Garnett, unless he really respects the work of Karen Guregian of the Boston Herald).

That drew them out of their holes, and Smith continued, saying: ?I understand that every Fan base has bad fans what I?m saying is NE fans have more than others and think they are better than everyone else.?

He also retweeted a photo someone sent him or a motorcycle arcade game, taunting him about his brother?s death.

That triggered what amounts to a screed:

?As much as I dislike MOST of the fan base I can honestly say that I respect the coaches and ownership,? he wrote. ?Ok I?m done starting stuff before I get a phone call from our organization haha?no apologies I meant what I said. .. I?m done responding to fans who confirmed what I originally said?having 1 fan base out of 32 hate you isn?t bad?don?t need y?all see ya.?

He later pointed out he was ready to end the feud, saying: ?The Mrs is mad at me for not taking the high road.?

The Mrs. is obviously unfamiliar with the Twitter, where the high road is generally the least-traveled.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/06/22/rookie-symposium-message-most-of-you-will-be-gone-in-three-years/related/

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Feds: Nuclear waste may be leaking into soil from Hanford site

Mark Ralston / AFP - Getty Images file

Government officials said radioactive waste might be leaking into the soil from a nuclear site in Hanford, Washington state. Governor Jay Inslee said the situation should be treated with the "utmost seriousness."

By Shannon Dininny, The Associated Press

An underground tank holding some of the worst radioactive waste at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site might be leaking into the soil.

The U.S. Energy Department said workers at Washington state's Hanford Nuclear Reservation detected higher radioactivity levels under tank AY-102 during a routine inspection Thursday.

Spokeswoman Lori Gamache said the department has notified Washington officials and is investigating the leak further. An engineering analysis team will conduct additional sampling and video inspection to determine the source of the contamination, she said.

State and federal officials have long said leaking tanks at Hanford do not pose an immediate threat to the environment or public health.

The largest waterway in the Pacific Northwest ? the Columbia River ? is still at least 5 miles away and the closest communities are several miles downstream.

However, if this dangerous waste escapes the tank into the soil, it raises concerns about it traveling to the groundwater and someday potentially reaching the river.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement that the situation "must be treated with the utmost seriousness."

Inslee said additional testing is expected to take several days.

"Our state experts confirm that there is no immediate public health threat. Given the relatively early detection of this potential leak, the river is not at immediate risk of contamination should it be determined that a leak has occurred outside the tank," he said.

Tom Carpenter, executive director of the Seattle-based advocacy group Hanford Challenge, said, "this is really, really bad. They are going to pollute the ground and the groundwater with some of the nastiest stuff, and they don't have a solution for it."

AY-102 is one of Hanford's 28 tanks with two walls, which were installed years ago when single-shell tanks began leaking. Some of the worst liquid in those tanks was pumped into the sturdier double-shell tanks.

The tanks are now beyond their intended life span. The Energy Department announced last year that AY-102 was leaking between its two walls, but it said then that no waste had escaped.

Two radionuclides comprise much of the radioactivity in Hanford's tanks: cesium-137 and strontium-90. Both take hundreds of years to decay, and exposure to either would increase a person's risk of developing cancer.

At the height of World War II, the federal government created Hanford in the remote sagebrush of eastern Washington as part of a hush-hush project to build the atomic bomb. The site ultimately produced plutonium for the world's first atomic blast and for one of two atomic bombs dropped on Japan, and it continued production through the Cold War.

Today, it is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, with cleanup expected to last decades. The effort ? with a price tag of about $2 billion annually ? has cost taxpayers $40 billion to date and is estimated will cost $115 billion more.

The most challenging task so far has been the removal of highly radioactive waste from the 177 aging, underground tanks and construction of a plant to treat that waste.

The Energy Department recently notified Washington and Oregon that it may miss two upcoming deadlines to empty some tanks and to complete a key part of the plant to handle some of the worst waste.

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz visited the site Wednesday for the first time since being confirmed by the Senate in May. He said he intends to have a new plan by the end of the summer for resolving the technical problems with the waste treatment plant.

Related:

Head of company overseeing leaking nuclear tanks at Hanford to step down

Six tanks now said to be leaking at contaminated Hanford nuclear site

Tank at Hanford nuclear site leaking radioactive liquids, Washington governor says

? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Doctors make progress toward 'artificial pancreas'

This October 2012 image provided by Medtronic shows the MiniMed Integrated System device, which doctors are reporting as a major step toward an "artificial pancreas." The device that would constantly monitor blood sugar in people with diabetes and automatically supply insulin as needed. According to the company-sponsored study announced Saturday, June 22, 2013 at an American Diabetes Association conference in Chicago the device worked as intended in a three-month study of 247 patients. (AP Photo/Medtronic)

This October 2012 image provided by Medtronic shows the MiniMed Integrated System device, which doctors are reporting as a major step toward an "artificial pancreas." The device that would constantly monitor blood sugar in people with diabetes and automatically supply insulin as needed. According to the company-sponsored study announced Saturday, June 22, 2013 at an American Diabetes Association conference in Chicago the device worked as intended in a three-month study of 247 patients. (AP Photo/Medtronic)

Doctors are reporting a major step toward an "artificial pancreas," a device that would constantly monitor blood sugar in people with diabetes and automatically supply insulin as needed.

A key component of such a system ? an insulin pump programmed to shut down if blood-sugar dips too low while people are sleeping ? worked as intended in a three-month study of 247 patients.

This "smart pump," made by Minneapolis-based Medtronic Inc., is already sold in Europe, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is reviewing it now. Whether it also can be programmed to mimic a real pancreas and constantly adjust insulin based on continuous readings from a blood-sugar monitor requires more testing, but doctors say the new study suggests that's a realistic goal.

"This is the first step in the development of the artificial pancreas," said Dr. Richard Bergenstal, diabetes chief at Park Nicollet, a large clinic in St. Louis Park, Minn. "Before we said it's a dream. We have the first part of it now and I really think it will be developed."

He led the company-sponsored study and gave results Saturday at an American Diabetes Association conference in Chicago. They also were published online by the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study involved people with Type 1 diabetes, the kind usually diagnosed during childhood. About 5 percent of the 26 million Americans with diabetes have this type. Their bodies don't make insulin, a hormone needed to turn food into energy. That causes high blood-sugar levels and raises the risk for heart disease and many other health problems.

Some people with the more common Type 2 diabetes, the kind linked to obesity, also need insulin and might also benefit from a device like an artificial pancreas. For now, though, it's aimed at people with Type 1 diabetes who must inject insulin several times a day or get it through a pump with a narrow tube that goes under the skin. The pump is about the size of a cellphone and can be worn on a belt or kept in a pocket.

The pumps give a steady amount of insulin, and patients must monitor their sugar levels and give themselves more insulin at meals or whenever needed to keep blood sugar from getting too high.

A big danger is having too much insulin in the body overnight, when blood-sugar levels naturally fall. People can go into comas, suffer seizures and even die. Parents of children with diabetes often worry so much about this that they sneak into their bedrooms at night to check their child's blood-sugar monitor.

In the study, all patients had sensors that continuously monitored their blood sugar. Half of them had ordinary insulin pumps and the others had pumps programmed to stop supplying insulin for two hours when blood-sugar fell to a certain threshold.

Over three months, low-sugar episodes were reduced by about one-third in people using the pump with the shut-off feature. Importantly, these people had no cases of severely low blood sugar ? the most dangerous kind that require medical aid or help from another person. There were four cases in the group using the standard pump.

"As a first step, I think we should all be very excited that it works," an independent expert, Dr. Irl Hirsch of the University of Washington in Seattle, said of the programmable pump.

The next step is to test having it turn off sooner, before sugar falls so much, and to have it automatically supply insulin to prevent high blood sugar, too.

Dr. Anne Peters, a diabetes specialist at the University of Southern California, said the study "represents a major step forward" for an artificial pancreas.

One participant, Spears Mallis, 34, a manager for a cancer center in Gainesville, Ga., wishes these devices were available now. He typically gets low-sugar about 8 to 10 times a week, at least once a week while he's asleep.

"I would set an alarm in the middle of the night just to be sure I was OK. That will cause you to not get a good night of rest," he said.

His "smart pump" stopped giving insulin several times during the study when his sugar fell low, and he wasn't always aware of it. That's a well-known problem for people with Type 1 diabetes ? over time, "you become less and less sensitive to feeling the low blood sugars" and don't recognize symptoms in time to drink juice or do something else to raise sugar a bit, he said.

Besides Medtronic, Johnson & Johnson and several other research groups are working on artificial pancreas devices.

___

Online:

Diabetes info: http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-06-22-Diabetes-Artificial%20Pancreas/id-5e0cf97363434ecebe1ad40d26b2b522

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Autopsy reveals Gandolfini died of heart attack

Celebs

Claudio Lavanga and Maria Elena Fernandez NBC News

18 hours ago

ROME -- A family friend of actor James Gandolfini announced at a news conference Friday that an autopsy showed "The Sopranos" star died of a "heart attack of natural causes" and "nothing else was found in his system."

The 51-year-old Emmy-winning actor suffered the heart attack in the bathroom of his room at the Hotel Boscolo in Rome while on vacation with his teenage son, Michael, and sister, Michael Kobold told reporters.

"James came here on vacation with family," Kobold said. "On Wednesday he went to visit the Vatican, and had dinner at the hotel with his son while waiting for his sister ... All are devastated for his loss. He was a loving father."

Kobold said that it could take up to 10 days of red tape to repatriate Gandolfini's body, but the family is hoping that, with the help of Italian authorities, it will happen in the middle of next week so that a funeral could be held in New York next Thursday, Friday or Saturday.

"He was happy, healthy, on vacation with his son," Kobold said. "He was fine."

Medical staff attempted to resuscitate Gandofini after his son found him in the bathroom, but he was pronounced dead at about 11 p.m. local time (5 p.m. ET) Wednesday at Policlinico Umberto I hospital, which is a three-minute drive from the hotel.

Famous for his role as mob boss Tony Soprano in hit HBO show "The Sopranos," Gandolfini was on a celebratory trip to Italy with his 13-year-old son, who had just graduated from junior high school and won a soccer championship.

Experts said a heart attack was a common cause of death for a man in his 50s.

Dr. John Harold, president of the American College of Cardiology and a heart specialist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said that ?in many patients who have a heart attack, the first symptom is sudden death and they don?t even make it to a hospital.?

Tributes have flooded in for the actor, who won three Emmy Awards and three Screen Actors Guild awards for playing Soprano from 1999-2007.

He also appeared in a number of big-screen roles, including the crime drama "Killing Them Softly" and "Zero Dark Thirty," a film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Academy Award winner Kathryn Bigelow, who directed Gandolfini in ?Zero Dark Thirty,? said she was devastated by the news of his death.

"James was such an enormous talent, and an even greater spirit. I will be forever grateful for the privilege of working with him, and shall cherish his memories always," she said in a statement.

Nicole Kidman said Gandolfini was ?such a great actor,? describing his death as ?a big loss.?

?Sending love and prayers to James? family. He will be greatly missed,? she said in a statement to eonline.com.

Brad Pitt described Gandolfini as ?a ferocious actor, a gentle soul and a genuinely funny man." ?I am fortunate to have sat across the table from him and am gutted by this loss.?

Gandolfini also made a good impression on the ordinary people he met.

An employee at the Hotel Boscolo told Italy's la Repubblica newspaper that during his stay the actor had signed autographs and was ?very friendly with us from hotel's staff and with other guests in the restaurant. A nice person.?

NBC News' Ian Johnston, Reuters and Mads Frese contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/james-gandolfini-autopsy-reveals-actor-died-heart-attack-6C10407874

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Weiner defends response voter who used gay slur

Weiner says he condemned a voter who used a slur against Quinn (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

NEW YORK?Armed with laser pointer and several PowerPoint slides, former Rep. Anthony Weiner sought to distinguish himself Thursday as the only Democratic mayoral hopeful willing to embrace what he called the "big" and "bold" ideas with a speech calling for a dramatic transformation of the way New Yorkers receive their health care.

But all it took was an apparent throw-away comment on a street corner several weeks ago to overshadow Weiner's latest attempt to turn the page from being the candidate who was forced out of Congress in a sexting scandal.

Instead of talking about health care, Weiner was forced to respond to questions about a published report that suggested he failed to strongly condemn a voter who used a homophobic slur to describe his mayoral rival Christine Quinn.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Weiner, at a recent campaign stop, spoke to an elderly voter who described Quinn, who is openly gay, as a ?dyke.?

Weiner, according to the paper, did not initially offer a reaction, asking the woman to sign a petition that would help him qualify for the city?s mayoral ballot. But the Post reported Weiner quickly shifted gears when he noticed the ?incredulous reaction of a reporter.?

?You really shouldn?t talk that way about people,? Weiner told the woman, according to the Post.

?Oh, I?m sorry,? the woman replied.

?It?s okay,? Weiner reportedly said. ?It?s not your fault.?

The story forced Weiner into damage control mode, telling reporters that the conversation with the woman occurred when he was standing in a "scrum of people." He insisted again and again he had condemned her comment and didn't recall any further discussion with the woman.

?When I heard the woman make that remark, I immediately admonished her not to say anything further,? Weiner told reporters, who surrounded him with tape recorders and cameras. ?I don?t have any memory of saying anything beyond that to the woman.?

He added, ?Let me make very clear that any utterance of any type of slur against any community I won?t tolerate.?

Weiner repeatedly said he has a ?long record? of supporting gay rights, even though he represented a ?fairly conservative district? in Congress and risked alienating his constituents.

?I feel very strongly about these issues, and I did admonish the woman and if there was something else that was said that was in any way interpreted as anything else, that was wrong. I admonished the woman and I believe she shouldn?t have said what she said,? Weiner declared, adding ?there should be no slurs like this of any kind? in the campaign.

While the Quinn campaign had no response, two openly gay state lawmakers released a statement criticizing Weiner?s initial response to the voter.

?We are appalled by the account in the Washington Post of Anthony Weiner?s unacceptable response to a prospective voter?s homophobic, misogynistic slur in reference to Christine Quinn,? Assemblywoman Deborah Glick and Sen. Brad Hoylman, both of whom have endorsed Quinn, said in a statement. ?Weiner?s response to this blatant display of homophobia is completely inappropriate and extremely alarming.?

The episode overshadowed the health care speech Weiner delivered before a Manhattan policy group Thursday in which he repeated his call for the creation of a ?single payer? health care system modeled after Medicare and managed and publicly financed by the city. He said his proposal, similar to a plan he pushed while in Congress, would save money by ?streamlining? the administration of the city?s health care and ultimately reducing overall coverage costs for all New Yorkers.

?New York is the ideal laboratory for a single-payer health care system,? Weiner said, pointing to the diversity of the population.

But Weiner offered only vague points about the mechanics of how he would begin to implement such a plan?especially in a political environment where President Barack Obama?s health care plan, which does not go nearly as far, is considered controversial.

He told Yahoo News he did not believe he would have to sign a law implementing the health care changes, but walked away before offering other details, like whether he would require approval from the City Council or would merely seek an executive order.

One element of Weiner?s plan that could generate some opposition from powerful labor unions representing city employees is a plan to ask municipal workers to pay more for their insurance. Under his proposal, current and retired city workers would pay 10 percent of their health care premiums, while smokers would pay 25 percent.

?Everybody has to have some skin in the game (for it to work),? Weiner said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/weiner-defends-reaction-voter-used-anti-gay-slur-213436150.html

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What's that thing in Uranus's orbit ? and how did it get there?

Scientists have located three Centaurs ? asteroid-comet hybrids ? in Uranus's orbit, including one that's moving oddly in the planet's wake.

By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / June 18, 2013

This view of Uranus reveals the planet's faint rings and several of its satellites.

NASA/UPI/FIle

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The planet Uranus ? already an odd duck for its upended rings and spin axis that means it is spinning on its side ? is being chased by two asteroids and is chasing another. One of the asteroids is in an unexpected orbit, by some estimates

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As a group, the trio presents a puzzle, because these co-orbiting objects are far fewer than those found orbiting with two other gas giants, Neptune and Jupiter, according to a new study. Some calculations have suggested Uranus shouldn't have any at all.

Solving that riddle could yield additional insights into processes that took place early in the solar system's history as well as test ideas about the evolution of the motions of solar system objects humans see today, notes Scott Kenyon, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics whose work focuses on star and solar-system formation.

Depending on the objects' composition and orbital traits, asteroids co-orbiting a planet could represent building blocks left over from the formation of the planet itself, or they may have migrated from somewhere else, only to occupy their current orbits until something disturbs their trajectory and they move on.

The asteroids co-orbiting Uranus belong to a class known as Centaurs. Centaurs, discovered in the 1920s, tend to orbit among the outer planets ? those beyond Mars. They represent a cross between asteroids and comets, with two showing halos of gas similar to a comet's coma. By some estimates, the solar system hosts 44,000 of these objects larger than 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) across. The largest is 260 km (160 miles) wide and orbits between Saturn and Uranus.

Two of the three objects co-orbiting Uranus were discovered between 2002 and 2010. A team of Canadian and French astronomers reported the discovery of the third in March.

Of the three objects, 83982 Crantor was the target of the new study, conducted by researchers Carlos and Raul de la Fuente Marcos at The Complutense University in Madrid.

The object turns out to be one of the ruddiest bodies in the solar system ? its reddish hue suggesting the presence of hydrocarbon particles known as tholins, similar to those on Saturn's moon Titan. In addition, 83982 Crantor appears to have water ice and methanol on its surface.

The two researchers were particularly interested in the object's orbit. After running their calculations, the scientists found that, as seen from Uranus's orbital path, 83982 Crantor appears to trace an enormous corkscrew pattern during its travels. When the orbit of this 41-mile wide object is traced relative to the sun and Uranus, it takes on the appearance of loop bent into the shape of a giant horse shoe, rather than forming an ellipse.

The odd shape results from changes in the asteroid's acceleration as it travels. The orbit is ?controlled by the sun and Uranus but is unstable due to disturbances from nearby Saturn,? said Carlos de la Fuente Marcos in a prepared statement. It's the close encounters with Uranus, however, that affect the orbit in ways that make it appear as a horse shoe along a path in which the asteroid appears to catch up with, then lag the planet.

In 2006, Uruguayan astronomer Tabar? Gallardo suggested that 83982 Crantor had the same orbital period Uranus did. But another pair of scientists calculated that Uranus was incapable of attracting and holding ? even temporarily ? anything in an orbit that would share the planet's orbital period. That would help explain the paucity of co-orbiting objects that are far more abundant with Neptune and Jupiter.

But the calculations by the de la Fuente Marcoses indicate that Dr. Gallardo was correct. Indeed, the object reported by the Canadian and French team in March also appears to be co-orbiting with the same orbital period Uranus has ? caught in a gravitational sweet spot between Uranus and the sun stable enough to maintain the asteroid's relative position ahead of Uranus throughout their orbits.

Indeed, the de la Fuente Marcoses suggest 83982 Crantor could represent "a Rosetta Stone" for solving the mystery of outer-planet co-orbiting asteroids.

The duo's calculations also suggest that the 83982 Crantor is a transitory object on cosmic timescales, not one that is part of the debris left over from Uranus's formation.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/3W3_yRr9-6k/What-s-that-thing-in-Uranus-s-orbit-and-how-did-it-get-there

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