Perspectives of a Canadian in the Old/Deep/New/Geographic South: This is where I ramble on about nothing in particular and post a few nice pictures.
Much buzz abounds about Phoenix‘s successful landing on Mars. There are already plenty of pictures to check out too.
With that landing, the score is tied at 20-20 and Earth’s scoring streak continues!
Although the mission is only scheduled to last 90 days, considering the success of Opportunity and Spirit, I have high hopes that Phoenix’s mission will last longer.
Kids in the Hall show tonight was totally awesome. They definitely haven’t lost their irreverence and ability to offend (Buddy Cole‘s monologue would definitely offend lots of people here). But they’re still funny as hell. A few recurring characters made appearances which brought much applause and shouting from the crowd, and lots of new stuff that I laughed very hard at. There was even some improv going on, like during the Two Salesmen skit when Bruce McCullough dropped the big jar of ‘fat’ and spilled it all over the stage.
My favourites were Gavin meets the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the final skit of the night with Head-crusher guy Mr Tyzik and a video camera. It was a pretty hilarious skit and a good way to end the show. Dave Foley’s time travel machine was pretty good too.
There were a lot more people at the show than I expected, filling about half of the North Charleston PAC. Didn’t think there were that many people in Charleston who knew who Kids in the Hall were. One guy even held up a Canada shirt that showed up on the screen during the last skit.
It was kind of funny watching Scott Thompson try to figure out what to do with the bra that was thrown onto the stage (and eventually putting it on).
Fantastic show and I’m glad I got to go see it.
The journal club has been getting neglected recently. Trying to remedy that for this year.
From this month’s JNM comes a paper on I-131 therapy and pregnancy, always a very hot issue. The paper is a follow-up to an earlier study from 1996 which said that I-131 exposure from thyroid therapy did not affect the outcome of subsequent pregnancies.
In the current paper, the number of patients with pregnancies within a year following 131I therapy was increased over the previous study (n=158 vs n=96) enabling better statistical analysis of the results.
One of the more interesting (I thought) results from the study was that the percentage of miscarriages following treatment for thyroid cancer (either surgical or radioiodine therapy) increased. However, the percentages were essentially the same whether the treatment was surgical or with radioiodine (20.7% vs 19%).
There are a lot of statistics and tables presented in the paper looking at a myriad of things. However, the bottom line is that the authors did not find any evidence to support a common precaution that female patients avoid becoming pregnant for one year following treatment for thyroid cancer.
Garsi J-P, Schlumberger M, Rubino C, et al. Therapeutic administration of 131I for differentiated thyroid cancer: radiation dose to ovaries and outcome of pregnancies. J Nucl Med. 2008;49:845-852
Abstract:
Radiation is known to be mutagenic. The present study updates a 10-y-old study regarding pregnancy outcome and the health of offspring of women previously exposed to radioiodine (131I) during thyroid carcinoma treatment, by doubling the number of pregnancies that occurred after exposure. Methods: Data on 2,673 pregnancies were obtained by interviewing female patients who were treated for thyroid carcinoma but had not received significant external radiation to the ovaries. Results: The incidence of miscarriages was 10% before any treatment for thyroid cancer; this percentage increased after surgery for thyroid cancer, both before (20%) and after (19%) 131I treatment, with no variation according to the cumulative dose. In contrast to previously reported data, miscarriages were not significantly more frequent in women treated with radioiodine during the year before conception, not even in women who had received more than 370 MBq during that year. The incidences of stillbirths, preterm births, low birth weight, congenital malformations, and death during the first year of life were not significantly different before and after 131I therapy. The incidences of thyroid and nonthyroid cancers were similar in children born either before or after the mother’s exposure to radioiodine. Conclusion: There is no evidence that exposure to radioiodine affects the outcomes of subsequent pregnancies and offspring. The question as to whether the incidences of malformations and thyroid and nonthyroid cancers are related to gonadal irradiation remains to be established. The doubling dose is still being heatedly debated, and the value of 1 Gy as the doubling dose in humans should be reevaluated.
The ability of plants to take root in just about anything never ceases to amaze me.
NOAA’s 2008 hurricane season forecast calls for another busy season this year, possibly influenced by a La Niña in the Pacific. 12-16 named storms, 6-9 hurricanes and 2-5 of them major hurricanes. “Busy season” is starting to seem pretty normal these days.
From the forecast:
The Climate Prediction Center’s 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook calls a 90% probability of a near-normal or above-normal hurricane season. An above-normal season is most likely (65% chance), but there is also a 25% chance of a near-normal season, and a 10% chance of a below-normal season. See NOAA’s definitions of above-, near-, and below-normal seasons.
The likely (60%-70% chance) ranges of activity for 2008 (each of which is seen in about two-thirds of similar seasons in the historical record): are 12-16 Named Storms, 6-9 Hurricanes, and 2-5 Major Hurricanes. Most of this activity is expected during August through October, the peak months of the Atlantic hurricane season.
The second key predictor for the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season is the possibility that the La Niña-related patterns of tropical convection and winds will persist, and therefore may be conducive to increased Atlantic hurricane activity. As discussed by Gray (1984), La Niña favors more Atlantic hurricanes and El Niño favors fewer hurricanes. The combination of La Niññn active hurricane era increases the probability of an above-normal season.