Free Republic

Somewhere over Afghanistan. Via http://ChamorroBible.org/gpw/gpw-20060917.htm (medium, large, huge) The Photographer Master Sgt. Andy Dunaway, United States Air Force  

Able to carry the largest payload of both guided and unguided weapons in the Air Force inventory, the B-1B Lancer is the backbone of America's long-range bomber force. A B-1B is scheduled to both fly and be on static display at the 2011 Selfridge Air Show and Open House, Aug. 20-21 at the base. The highly-versatile and multi-mission capable B-1 is in high demand in support of operations around the world. "This is an awesome opportunity to see the Lancer up close and personal," said Lt. Col. Phillip Sheridan, vice wing commander of the 127th Wing, which is based at...

... As the ice and snow fell on March 27, two B-1s took off during a snow and ice storm. The two bombers flew east across the United States and over international waters. Flying with the wind, the jets required four mid-air refuelings to reach Libya. Hart said the crews flew over water after leaving the U.S. "Whenever we fly a military aircraft over another country's airspace you need a diplomatic clearance," Hart said. "The clearances take time we didn't have, and there's less visibility if you're not flying over someone's country." After dropping the first wave of bombs, the...

<p>A U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities might look just like this: a B-1bomber lancing along just above the desert floor at 900 feet per second, ducking behind mountains and beneath ridgelines to hide from enemy radar, carrying a bellyful of 2,000-pound satellite-guided bombs.</p>

B-1 carries record-setting missile load 07:01 GMT, September 10, 2010 DYESS AFB, Texas | A Dyess Air Force Base B-1B Lancer carried a full load of 24 AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Stand-off Missiles on a flight over the Gulf of Mexico, Sept. 7 -- a first for the B-1 and AGM-158. "The mission was a success," said Maj. Brian Owen, the chief of wing weapons and tactics. "Everything went as planned, and we can verify that the B-1B can in fact operate its full capacity of JASSMs." The purpose of the flight was to ensure maintainers, ammo and munitions Airmen and...

Back to the Title 10 side of the house for a moment; the Air Force Council meets today to consider further cuts in aircraft to meet aggressive savings targets laid out by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. One option on the table: early retirement of all 66 B-1B Lancer bombers (the last delivery of which came back in 1988). Force structure cuts might also extend to the air arm’s much cherished but currently under-utilized fighter force. The service already plans to early retire 250 fighters this year, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said last month; gone are 112 F-15s, 134 F-162,...

I had a piece of bone work its way through my gums after a tooth extraction. How can I use it to pin a murder on someone?

The non-nuclear B-1 Lancer has adapted from a strategic mission to a close-air support role, and will continue to play an effective part in today's fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to leaders here. While the remaining bombers in the Air Force inventory transferred to Air Force Global Strike Command, the B-1 has become the go-to airframe when combatant commanders want a show of force or support for ground troops. "The predominance of what we are doing right now in theater is close-air support; non-traditional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; and armed overwatch" said Col. Charlie Catoe, 7th Operations Group commander....

WASHINGTON — If they only knew, dogs from coast to coast might be howling over this advice from the government. The Food and Drug Administration issued a reminder to consumers Wednesday to toss out bones from their meals rather than feed them to their pets. "Some people think it's safe to give dogs large bones, like those from a ham or a roast," said Carmela Stamper, a veterinarian in the Center for Veterinary Medicine at the FDA. "Bones are unsafe no matter what their size." The FDA spelled out 10 reasons it's a bad idea to give doggie a real...

"Many years ago, as a small child, I was told one of those old-fashioned fables for children. It was about a dog with a bone in his mouth, who was walking on a log across a stream. The dog looked down into the water and saw his reflection. He thought it was another dog with a bone in his mouth -- and it seemed to him that the other dog's bone was bigger than his. He decided that he was going to take the other dog's bone away and opened his mouth to attack. The result was that his own...

Ya just gotta see this one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anDvU530g2o

A shoplifting dog leaves store employees scratching their heads. KSL's John Hollenhorst reports. (Video at link.)

Engineers at Georgia Tech have used skin cells to create artificial bones that mimic the ability of natural bone to blend into other tissues such as tendons or ligaments. The artificial bones display a gradual change from bone to softer tissue rather than the sudden shift of previously developed artificial tissue, providing better integration with the body and allowing them to handle weight more successfully. The research appears in the August 26, 2008, edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "One of the biggest challenges in regenerative medicine is to have a graded continuous interface, because anatomically...

A recent medical breakthrough at UNC may help thousands every year whose broken bones do not heal.  Researchers who transplanted adult mouse stem cells into mice with fractured bones showed that the cells could help heal the fractures. Anna Spagnoli, associate professor of pediatrics and biomedical engineering at UNC and senior author of the study, said it was meant to determine whether adult stem cells could be used to improve the healing tissue at a fractured site and whether the cells went directly to the injury once transplanted.  She said that as a pediatrician, she has worked with children...

Rag and bone cup dates to 300BC Last Updated: 9:40PM BST 27/05/2008 The grandson of a rag and bone man who acquired a small metal cup is in line for a windfall after discovering it is a pure gold vessel dating back to the third or fourth century BC. A rag and bone man gave his grandson the pure gold vessel, which is from the third or fourth century BC The piece could be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. The 5½ in cup, believed to be from the Achaemenid empire, has two female faces looking in opposite directions, their...

WASHINGTON, May 2, 2008 – When he’s in Cincinnati tomorrow to receive an award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, a senior enlisted sailor will meet the girl whose life he saved with a bone marrow donation. Navy Chief Petty Officer Willie H. Corey, a submarine fire control technician, will be recognized for his participation in the National Marrow Donor Program. Corey, a native of Newport News, Va., has been a donor on the NMDP’s registry since fall 2006. "When I found out that the potential recipient was a little girl, it was a no-brainer to donate; I have a...

A suspicious package found on a bus in Peru turned out to contain a mysterious and massive animal jawbone, officials announced on Tuesday. Police who investigated the bus's cargo hold said they noticed the package because it had no identifying marks and was oddly heavy. "They were worried about its weight, opened it, and found the fossil," Kleber Jimenez, a local police officer, told the Reuters news service. Pablo de la Vera Cruz, an archaeologist at the Universidad Nacional de San Agustín de Arequipa, initially identified the 19-pound (8.6-kilogram) jawbone via police photos as perhaps belonging to a Triceratops, according...

British Troops call in B1 assistance with a direct hit...

Lower vitamin D levels, more hip fractures HONOLULU, Sept. 21 (UPI) -- A U.S. researcher found an increased risk of hip fractures in women with low levels of vitamin D. Jane Cauley of the University of Pittsburgh evaluated patient data on 400 women enrolled in the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study Cohort, who had experienced hip fracture. "The risk of hip fractures was 77 percent higher among women whose 25 hydroxyvitamin D levels were at the lowest concentrations,"Cauley said in a statement. "This effect persisted even when we adjusted for other risk factors such as body mass index, family history...

If your blood glucose is out of whack, the problem may be in your bones. New research in mice shows that bone cells exert a surprising influence on how the body regulates sugar, energy, and fat. A bone-cell protein called osteocalcin influences energy metabolism through its effects on pancreatic and fat cells.

New techniques to boost survival of adult stem cells could improve surgeries for severe fractures. Implantable materials that grab stem cells and spur their growth and survival could improve bone-healing surgeries. Linda Griffith and her colleagues at MIT have created a new tissue-engineering material that could help cells survive the harsh transplant environment--a key step in cell-transplant therapies. Scientists are now testing the material in animals to see how well it can help heal fractures.  "Creating instructional biomaterials like this is an entirely new way of thinking about what could be put in the human body," says Richard Lee, a...

EDWARDS AFB - The 419th Flight Test Squadron recently completed its initial developmental testing of a Sniper pod installed on a B-1B Lancer. The pod, manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corp., is an advanced targeting pod with multi-sensor capability and allows the operator to positively identify targets. Currently, the B-1 cannot positively identify targets without additional aids such as other aircraft or personnel on the ground, said Maj. Jacque Joffrion, 419th Squadron B-1 flight commander and experimental test pilot. The pod increases the aircraft's self-targeting capability, he said. "The positive target identification capability of the targeting pod is what enhances reconnaissance...

Cola Raises Women's Osteoporosis Risk 10.06.06, 12:00 AM ET FRIDAY, Oct. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Cola may not be so sweet for women's bones, according to new research that suggests the beverage boosts osteoporosis risk. "Among women, cola beverages were associated with lower bone mineral density," said lead researcher Katherine Tucker, director of the Epidemiology and Dietary Assessment Program at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University. There was a pretty clear dose-response, Tucker added. "Women who drink cola daily had lower bone mineral density than those who drink it only once a week,"...

Surgeons have used stem cells from fat to help repair skull damage in a 7-year-old girl in Germany, in what's apparently the first time such fat-derived cells have been exploited to grow bone in a human. The girl had been injured two years before in a fall, which destroyed several areas of her skull totaling nearly 19 square inches, the German researchers reported. Other surgeons had failed to correct the defects, and the girl wore a protective helmet. Her brain could sometimes be seen pulsating through the missing areas of her skull. But several weeks after the stem-cell surgery, she...

A team of researchers has succeeded in engineering stem cells taken from tooth germ to quickly develop into liver or bone tissue, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology's Research Institute (AIST) for Cell Engineering said. A joint team of scientists from the institute and Osaka University succeeded in repairing damaged liver and bones in rats using stem cells taken from wisdom tooth germ. The finding raises hopes of developing regenerative medicine using wisdom teeth germ taken from people during orthodontic treatments. Tooth germ disappears as a tooth is formed, but that of a wisdom tooth stays in...

Australian scientists are using stem cells to repair fractures in patients whose bones won't heal. The hope is it will save patients having to undergo many painful operations. Jamie Stevens, 21, fell off his motor bike nine months ago, fracturing his thigh bone. It didn't heal, leaving a five-centimetre gap. The usual treatment would be to graft a new bone from his hip. Instead, he was chosen as the first Australian patient to get an injection of specially treated stem cells. "The benefits outweigh the old procedure which takes a big chunk out of your hip," Jamie Stevens said. "It's...

In a significant advance for regenerative medicine, researchers at Rice University have discovered a new way to culture adult stem cells from bone marrow such that the cells themselves produce a growth matrix that is rich in important biochemical growth factors. The research, which appears online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is notable not just because of the science – researchers found they could coax bone cells into produce up to 75 times more calcium – but also because the study was conducted by an undergraduate bioengineering senior, Néha Datta. "These results are important,...

LONDON, March 29 - The day may be coming when stem cells help arthritis patients repair their own joints. Cultured adult human periosteal stem cells demonstrate mesenchymal multipotency, suggesting that they may be used to repair tissue and joint damage associated with arthritis, researchers here reported. Upon enzymatic release and culture expansion, cells harvested from the periosteum can "give rise to cartilage and bone," wrote Cosimo De Bari, M.D., Ph.D. and colleagues at King's College London in the April issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism. Moreover, the cells differentiated into chondrocyte, osteoblast, adipocyte and myocyte lineages regardless of donor age. Although...

U.S. MARINE CORPS FORCES, PACIFIC, CAMP H. M. SMITH, Hawaii (Jan. 25, 2006) -- As the War on Terrorism continues, the increased threat of nuclear, biological and chemical warfare attacks continue. The Department of Defense, in preparation, has devised countermeasures to be ready for such an attack. The DoD is sponsoring world-wide bone marrow drives on military installations that will help treat victims of nuclear, biological or chemical attacks. “If a servicemember is attacked by a nuclear, biological or chemical weapon, it takes three days for their bone marrow to deteriorate,” said Petty Officer 2nd Class Andrea Miles, the C.W....

Patricia Battisti had thought her back surgery in early 2005 was routine. A letter from her hospital nearly a year later made it clear she was wrong. Battisti was informed that the cadaver bone that was implanted in her back may have been infected with various viruses -- the result of what investigators say was a large-scale scheme in which corpses were cut up and body parts illegally sold.

THE UN Secretary-General has used his end-of-year press conference to lash out at the media in general, and The Times in particular, for their coverage of the Oil-for-Food scandal and his role in it. Kofi Annan singled out James Bone, New York correspondent of The Times, after he questioned Mr Annan about a Mercedes jeep that his son, Kojo, imported into Ghana using his father’s diplomatic immunity to avoid taxes. Kojo Annan worked for a Swiss firm, Cotecna, that won a lucrative UN contract to monitor those imports. Mr Annan told reporters that they had focused unduly on himself and...

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Kofi Annan lashed out at the media after a year of unrelenting attacks on the United Nations and criticism of his management of the $64 billion oil-for-food program in Iraq, calling one critic "an overgrown schoolboy." He criticized reporters Wednesday for what he said was unfair coverage of his role in the oil-for-food program and insisted reporters missed the big story. That, he said, was the more than 2,200 companies and invididuals from some 40 countries that paid kickbacks or illegal surcharges to Saddam Hussein's government to get contracts. An 18-month investigation led by former U.S....

Jumshedpur, India: Though it is an internationally accepted fact that osteoporosis is more common in women than men, prominent orthopaedics in the steel city have come up with an interesting finding. According to them, incidents of the disease in the city have been noticed more in burqa-clad women and those who have lesser physical activity than the office-going ones. Throwing light on prevalence of osteoporosis, Dr AK Verma, superintendent of MGM hospital said: “Women require a balanced diet, rich in calcium and Vitamin D. Women, particularly after menopause, are at higher risk and should maintain a good diet. They should...

Scientists have shown for the first time that carbon nanotubes make an ideal scaffold for the growth of bone tissue. The new technique could change the way doctors treat broken bones, allowing them to simply inject a solution of nanotubes into a fracture to promote healing. The report appears in the June 14 issue of the American Chemical Society’s journal Chemistry of Materials. ACS is the world’s largest scientific society. The success of a bone graft depends on the ability of the scaffold to assist the natural healing process. Artificial bone scaffolds have been made from a wide variety of...

Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - Page updated at 01:17 p.m Kate Riley / Times staff columnist Another bone of contention over Kennewick Man Kennewick Man is poised to tell his secrets. Almost nine years after the 9,300-year-old remains were found on the banks of the Columbia River and a fierce legal battle, federal courts agreed unequivocally scientists should be able to study Kennewick Man. However, U.S. Sen. John McCain has colluded with those who want to stifle the stories of similar old bones and the light they can shed on the earliest Americans and where they came from. The Arizona...

3 are slain in Belleville beauty salon By Doug Moore and Robert Goodrich Of the Post-Dispatch 03/02/2005 Authorities were working both sides of the Mississippi River late Wednesday night in their search for a killer who stabbed a popular Belleville hairdresser and two of his customers earlier in the day. A customer who showed up at the salon just after 11 a.m. Wednesday found the bodies of salon owner Michael J. Cooney, 62, and sisters Dorothy E. Bone, 82, and Doris J. Fischer, 79. Police believe Cooney knew the killer, who fled in Cooney's sport utility vehicle. Authorities were seeking...

Some will think it a romantic gesture, others will find it grisly. But one willing couple in the UK is about to get the chance, thanks to a government-funded project intended to promote awareness of the issues surrounding tissue engineering. "It's for people who want to give a bit of their body to each other," says Nikki Stott, a jewellery designer at the Royal College of Art in London. She and her colleague Tobie Kerridge are collaborating with Ian Thomspon, a bioengineer at King's College London. The tricky part is that the lucky couple will have to provide bone cell...

Friday, Dec 31, 2004 Bison bone discovery turns B.C. history upside-down PENTICTON (BC Newspaper Group) — The year 2004 ends with a major story in archaeology, revealed by the use of new DNA technology on ancient bison bones scattered around western North America. The findings profoundly affect our understanding of how North America was populated by humans, and could have an impact on aboriginal politics as well. The conventional wisdom, taught to generations in school, speaks of a land bridge connecting Asia with Alaska. This now-submerged bridge was created by lower sea levels in the last ice age, which ended...

Now that the conservatives have made their voice more loud and clear by reelecting G.W. Bush, we must not relent in turning back the liberal tide that has vexed our nation.

Old high school friend has an 18 year old son with leukemia. His outlook is really good- the chemo is working, and they haven't found any cancer cells for several months. He's probably NOT going to need a bone marrow transplant The thing is, the curent treatment involves repeated, growing doses of chemo- kind of a "scorched earth" approach to making sure no cancer is left. He's a jock, he's a scrapper, but it's tough- they basically ramp up the doses until the chemo's about to kill you. I'd like to be able to tell him that his situation has...

1 IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE SIXTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA IN AND FOR PINELLAS COUNTY PROBATE ACTION In Re: The Guardianship of THERESA MARIE SCHIAVO, Incapacitated, FILE NO.: 90-2908GD-003 / ROBERT SCHINDLER, et al., Petitioners, v. MICHAEL SCHIAVO, Respondent. / DEPOSITION OF: WILLIAM CAMPBELL WALKER, M.D. TAKEN: By Counsel for Petitioner DATE: November 21, 2003 TIME: 9:40 a.m. PLACE: 311 Rye Road East Bradenton, Florida REPORTED BY: Sherry L. Frain Notary Public State of Florida at Large RICHARD LEE REPORTING Registered Professional Reporters (813) 229-1588 TAMPA: email: rlr@fdn.com ST. PETERSBURG: 501 East Jackson Street, Suite...

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Dozens of former SARS patients in Hong Kong are suffering from bone degeneration, known as avascular necrosis, sources said Friday, throwing the spotlight back on the controversial cocktail of drugs used to treat many patients during the epidemic. "A substantial number of cases have already been proven. We are now trying to ascertain the severity," said Leung Ping-chung, an orthopedics specialist at the Prince of Wales Hospital, where the first wave of SARS infections in Hong Kong were treated. Almost all SARS patients in Hong Kong were treated with the anti-viral drug ribavirin and steroids earlier...

PREVIOUS POST - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/940572/posts Well, we may finally have a hint that we are turning the corner! Lani Marie's White Blood Cell count has been something like 0.02 to 0.05 since her chemo and radiation ended on 7/10/2003 (normal range is 4.5 to 13.5). This was a good thing because this is evidence that the old bone marrow has been all killed off. BUT eventually, the new bone marrow is supposed to kick in and begin making new cells. The doctors haven't been worried, as different people have their counts begin to come back at different times, but on the...

Our daughter, Lani Marie (age 11, birthday 10/4/91), was admitted yesterday to Texas Children's Hospital for a Bone Marrow Transplant. Last August she was diagnosed with CML Leukemia. This is very rare in children - less than 100 pediatric cases occur each year in the U.S. While the new genetic drug Gleevec has controlled her CML Leukemia, it is not a cure. The only chance for a cure is the transplant. Her oldest sister Jennifer was a perfect 6/6 match as a donor, and we have hopes ->Of Course<- that the procedure will be successful. She will be in the...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. New studies have backed a suggestion that an inscribed ossuary [bone box] being examined by archaeological authorities in Israel may well be that of St James, the brother of Jesus. Examination of the inscription - potentially the world's first ever archaeological reference to Jesus - by Dr Andre Lemaire, a specialist in Aramaic texts at the Sorbonne in Paris had already suggested, on purely epigraphic grounds, that the inscription was genuine. But now a team of scientists at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, has come to the same conclusion...

Burial with the Romans The Romans normally respected the dead. But not always. Alison Taylor reports on mutilation, child sacrifice, burial alive and other such practices For most of us, Roman culture is a byword for civilisation in an otherwise 'barbarian' ancient world. When we think of the Romans, what springs to mind are their achievements in art and literature, architecture, engineering, law - and all the rest. Yet the undeniable sophistication of the Romans has led many archaeologists to expect civilised treatment of the dead. When excavating cemeteries in Roman Britain, we go to huge lengths to explain away...

Two dogs digging for a buried bone in their owner's backyard in Chile found a 2,500-year-old mummy. Ivan Paredes, who lives in Arica, could not believe his eyes when his dogs dug up the ancient body. He told La Cuarta online: "The dogs were trying to find bones buried in the backyard as usual, but they started to bark very loud and I came to check what was going on and found the mummy of child." Archaeologists believe it is the remains of a boy buried by his parents who would probably have been farmers. The mummy, said to be...

New Age For Mungo Man, New Human HistoryA University of Melbourne-led study has finally got scientists to agree on the age of Mungo Man, Australia's oldest human remains, and the consensus is he is 22,000 years younger. A University of Melbourne-led team say Mungo Man's new age is 40,000 years, reigniting the debate for the 'Out of Africa' theory. The research also boosted the age of Mungo Lady, the world's first recorded cremation, by 10,000 years putting her at the same age as Mungo Man. It is the first time scientists have reached a broad agreement on the ages of...

Sarcasm doesn't tickle children's funny bone January 24 2003 at 09:53AM Calgary - When parents use sarcasm to playfully tease their young children, do the kids see the humour? Not likely, according to a Canadian researcher who has completed a study showing that children need to be 10 or older before grasping the idea that sarcasm can be funny or even insulting. The results have implications for everything from the content of children's television programmes to the interpretation of abusive behaviour, Penny Pexman, a psychologist from the University of Calgary, said on Thursday. "Our study suggests that the five-year-olds are...

'Oldest star chart' found The oldest image of a star pattern, that of the famous constellation of Orion, has been recognised on an ivory tablet some 32,500 years old. The tiny sliver of mammoth tusk contains a carving of a man-like figure with arms and legs outstretched in the same pose as the stars of Orion. The claim is made by Dr Michael Rappenglueck, formerly of the University of Munich, who is already renowned for his pioneering work locating star charts painted on the walls of prehistoric caves. The tablet also contains mysterious notches, carved on its sides and...