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As the U.S. Senate debates health care reform this week, the state's senators are pursuing amendments to bolster children's health insurance and toughen the Medicare fraud law. Sen. Bob Casey's amendment would ensure the future of the Children's Health Insurance Program by keeping it separate from a national health insurance exchange proposed under the Senate's reform bill. "No matter what anyone says, we've got to figure out a way to do this," he said. "And if it costs more money, then it costs more money. I think it's essential that we have all of the protections that we can in...

Sept 21 (Reuters) - Shares of VeriChip Corp (CHIP.O) tripled after the company said it had been granted an exclusive license to two patents, which will help it to develop implantable virus detection systems in humans. The patents, held by VeriChip partner Receptors LLC, relate to biosensors that can detect the H1N1 and other viruses, and biological threats such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, VeriChip said in a statement. The technology will combine with VeriChip's implantable radio frequency identification devices to develop virus triage detection systems. The triage system will provide multiple levels of identification -- the first will identify the...

"The district-wide program would start with kindergarten through fifth-grade students, Rowley said, because they are less likely to complain about wearing a tracking device. As the children get older, the program could work its way into middle and high schools. "By the time a kindergartner gets to sixth grade, they'll get used to it," Rowley said."

There's a pretty starling thing in the bill that 95% of Americans won't like. The Obama Health care bill under Class II (Paragraph 1, Section B) specifically includes ‘‘(ii) a class II device that is implantable." Then on page 1004 it describes what the term "data" means in paragraph 1, section B: 14 ‘‘(B) In this paragraph, the term ‘data’ refers to in15 formation respecting a device described in paragraph (1), 16 including claims data, patient survey data, standardized 17 analytic files that allow for the pooling and analysis of 18 data from disparate data environments, electronic health 19 records,...

It is surely the biggest Big Brother project yet conceived. India is to issue each of its 1.2 billion citizens, millions of whom live in remote villages and possess no documentary proof of existence, with cyber-age biometric identity cards. The Government in Delhi recently created the Unique Identification Authority, a new state department charged with the task of assigning every living Indian an exclusive number. It will also be responsible for gathering and electronically storing their personal details, at a predicted cost of at least £3 billion. The task will be led by Nandan Nilekani, the outsourcing sage who coined...

Note: The following text SNIPPET is a quote: News Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, July 6, 2009 Secretary Sebelius Announces Availability of $40 Million in Grants to Help Insure More Children HHS Secretary, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter Encourage Community Organizations, State and Local Governments to Apply HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced the availability of up to $40 million in grants to help reach families whose children qualify but are not yet enrolled in state Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Programs (CHIP). Sebelius was joined for the announcement by Colorado Governor Bill Ritter. Colorado has been a leader in the...

Yet another sci-fi milestone is upon us: microchips implanted under your skin and used to identify you. The VeriChip is the first radio-frequency identification (RFID) microchip that’s been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in humans. The chip is the size of a long grain of rice, and can be implanted pretty much anywhere in the body (most commonly along the tricep). Depending on how it’s used, the chip could do anything from telling doctors your medical background to buying you a round at the club.Outside of human bodies, RFID is already used for a wide range...

SNIPPET: "On February 15, at approximately 2200 hours, officers from the California Highway Patrol had just landed their Bell 206 LongRanger at Fullerton Airport in California. The aircrafts rotors were still spinning and the crew was just about to begin their shutdown checklist when a man suddenly appeared at the pilot's door yelling and screaming. The pilot opened the door and the man, identified as Edwin Rosales of Anaheim was irrational and was believed to be under the influence of narcotics, forcefully grabbed his arm. With the aircraft still running, the pilot pushed the Mr. Rosales backwards and told him...

Privacy advocates are issuing warnings about a new radio chip plan that ultimately could provide electronic identification for every adult in the U.S. and allow agents to compile attendance lists at anti-government rallies simply by walking through the assembly. The proposal, which has earned the support of Janet Napolitano, the newly chosen chief of the Department of Homeland Security, would embed radio chips in driver's licenses, or "enhanced driver's licenses." "Enhanced driver's licenses give confidence that the person holding the card is the person who is supposed to be holding the card, and it's less elaborate than REAL ID," Napolitano...

Washington States own Senior Senator, Patty Murray, tennis shoed lovable little mouse that she is, has joyfully announced how she and other Democrats have locked arms and decided to “stick it to the poor” people they claim to care about and want to help. Of course that isn’t exactly what she says, but that is the obvious outcome of their strong support and passing of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, CHIP. After all the bleeding heart fearmongering of children receiving no health care today and all the millions of dollars that will come to Washington State, Murray unwittingly reveals how...

Urges Colleagues to Put Partisanship Aside and Focus on Providing Nearly 11 Million of the Neediest Children with the Health Care They Deserve WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As the U.S. Senate prepares to debate the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Reauthorization Act of 2009, Senator Jay Rockefeller, Chairman of the Finance Subcommittee on Health Care, today urged his colleagues to quickly pass this critical legislation to provide health insurance to nearly 11 million of the nation’s poorest children, including 4.1 million children who would be newly insured. In preparation for the debate, Senator Rockefeller released a section-by-section comparison of the three...

Albert P. Carey, President and CEO Frito-Lay North America 7701 Legacy Drive Plano, Texas 75024 Dear Mr. Carey, I would like to make a proposal for Frito Lay to consider. Please bear with me as I 'Lays' the ground work. If your not aware, New York State is offering 1.2 Billion dollar subsidy for a chip fabrication plant to be located in Saratoga New York. We the citizens of New York, are led to believe this is an effort to bring new jobs to the State –roughly 1,400 jobs. The State has been in lengthy discussions with Advanced Micro Devices...

With a $1.6M grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR), UC San Diego NanoEngineering professor Joseph Wang will lead a project to create a "field hospital on a chip" that soldiers can wear on the battlefield. The automated sense-and-treat system will continuously monitor a soldier's sweat, tears or blood for biomarkers that signal common battlefield injuries such as trauma, shock, brain injury or fatigue. Once the system detects a battlefield injury, it will automatically administer the proper medication, thus beginning the treatment well before the soldier has reached a field hospital. "Since the majority of battlefield deaths occur...

Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed a low-power microchip which uses 30,000 times less power in sleep mode and 10 times less in active mode than similar chips now on the market. Named the Phoenix Processor, it is intended for use in cutting-edge sensor-based devices such as medical implants, environment monitors, and surveillance equipment. � Professor David Blaauw (Credit: University of Michigan) In the future, sensors may be implanted in our bodies to measure blood-glucose levels of diabetics or retinal pressure in glaucoma patients. In practical terms, the chips would have to both be very small and...

By 2014 the Army may issue more than combat gear to deploying soldiers. University of Connecticut researchers are developing an implantable chip that would be injected under soldiers' skin to help monitor vital health information while they are out in the field. “It sounds like science fiction but it's not,” said Fotios Papadimitrakopoulos, professor of chemistry and associate director of the Institute of Materials Science at UConn. “We're taking components from traditional biology and nanotechnology and trying to marry them.” Six UConn faculty members have been working to create a nanosensor, just millimeters in length and width, that will be...

Hutchison votes for children's health insurance bill Move could help with gubernatorial run, analysts say. Click-2-Listen By Suzanne Gamboa ASSOCIATED PRESS Monday, October 22, 2007 WASHINGTON — Republican U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas consistently voted for a children's health insurance bill President Bush opposed. But only after voting for a bill GOP leaders favored. No flip-flopping. Hutchison was covering her bases. Texas leads the nation in uninsured children. But the state remains strongly Republican. The party's conservatives who see the program as a step toward government-run health care still turn out heavily in Texas GOP primaries. "I think...

WASHINGTON - President Bush again called Democrats "irresponsible" on Saturday for pushing an expansion he opposes to a children's health insurance program. "Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill they know will be vetoed," Bush said of the measure that draws significant bipartisan support, repeating in his weekly radio address an accusation he made earlier in the week. "Members of Congress are risking health coverage for poor children purely to make a political point." At issue is the Children's Health Insurance Program, a state-federal program that subsidizes health coverage for low-income people, mostly children, in families that earn...

September 20, 2007 Reid: Bush Must Drop Threat To Block Health Coverage For America's Children Washington, DC—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made the following statement today in response to President Bush’s comments this morning repeating his threat to veto renewal of the Children’s Health Insurance Program: “Democrats and Republicans came together to create the Children’s Health Insurance Program 10 years ago, and we are coming together again to reauthorize and improve it before it expires in 10 days. But President Bush – who ran on the promise to enroll millions of more children in CHIP – is going back on...

Texas CHIP changes coming Sept. 1 Children will be able to stay longer in the health insurance program By Corrie MacLaggan AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Tuesday, August 07, 2007 Starting Sept. 1, Texas families will be able to stay in the Children's Health Insurance Program for a full year rather than having to reapply every six months, and, in most cases, they won't have to wait 90 days to enroll. The changes, which are expected to expand enrollment, come as debate in Washington continues on federal funding of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. In Texas, families will be able to deduct...

August 1, 2007 Children’s Health Plan Focus of New Struggle By ROBERT PEAR WASHINGTON, July 31 — The Children’s Health Insurance Program has suddenly become a vehicle for an ideological struggle between President Bush and Congress over the future of the health care system. But in the short term, members of both parties say, the broader outline of that struggle is likely to be reduced to a simple question: “Are you for or against children?”

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - IBM has developed a way to make microchips run up to one-third faster or use 15 percent less power by using an exotic material that "self-assembles" in a similar way to a seashell or snowflake. The computer services and technology company said the new process allows the wiring on a chip to be insulated with vacuum, replacing the glass-like substances used for decades but which have become less effective as chips steadily shrink.A cross section of a microprocessor shows empty space in between the chip's copper wiring in this undated handout photograph. REUTERS/IBM/Handout

Medicaid lawsuit could cost state billions Legislators want to delay decisions till case ruling By Jason Embry and Corrie MacLaggan AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Wednesday, March 07, 2007 A pending lawsuit expected to cost the state millions — perhaps billions — of dollars threatens to prevent lawmakers from spending more on a range of services, the Senate's chief budget-writer said Tuesday. The uncertainty could slow, or halt, efforts to increase spending on the Children's Health Insurance Program, college financial aid, pre-kindergarten and other programs. "What the Legislature probably needs to do is to hold back some money and avoid expanding any discretionary...

Bird-brained China scientists learn to fly pigeons Tue Feb 27, 12:53 AM ET BEIJING (Reuters) - Scientists in eastern China say they have succeeded in controlling the flight of pigeons with micro electrodes planted in their brains, state media reported on Tuesday. ADVERTISEMENT Scientists at the Robot Engineering Technology Research Centre at Shandong University of Science and Technology said ther electrodes could command them to fly right or left or up or down, Xinhua news agency said. "The implants stimulate different areas of the pigeon's brain according to signals sent by the scientists via computer, and force the bird to...

A chip with 80 processing cores and capable of more than a trillion calculations per second (teraflop) has been unveiled by Intel. The Teraflop chip is not a commercial release but could point the way to more powerful processors, said the firm. The chip achieves performance on a piece of silicon no bigger than a fingernail that 11 years ago required a machine with 10,000 chips inside it. The challenge is to find a way to program the many cores simultaneously. Current desktop machines have up to four separate cores, while the Cell processor inside the PlayStation 3 has eight...

Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, has overhauled the basic building block of the information age, paving the way for a new generation of faster and more energy-efficient processors. Company researchers said the advance represented the most significant change in the materials used to manufacture silicon chips since Intel pioneered the modern integrated-circuit transistor more than four decades ago.

Hewlett-Packard researchers have designed a faster, more energy-efficient chip by packing in more transistors--without shrinking them.These nanoscale crossbars, developed at HP, could lead to an entirely new chip architecture that would improve chip performance without shrinking transistors. The crossbars are to be placed on top of the transistors, replacing the wire interconnects currently found between them and freeing up space for more transistors. Credit: Hewlett-Packard Company In the chip-making industry, the best way to increase the speed of electronics and make them cheaper has always been to shrink a chip's transistors to create room for more. But now researchers at...

BOCA RATON, Fla. - A teen engineering prodigy who gained national attention in 2002 when he and his family received identification chip implants on live television was killed in a motorcycle accident, authorities said. Derek Jacobs, 18, lost control of his motorcycle early Saturday and crashed into a guardrail and a pole, the Palm Beach County sheriff's office said. He was wearing a helmet. "It was just a crazy accident of a bump or something, and he was catapulted," said his mother, Leslie Jacobs. "He had, of course, potential, because he was brilliant, and he was just a wonderful son....

Engine on a chipISA InTech, September 28, 2006 Engine on a chip A tiny gas-turbine engine inside a silicon chip about the size of a quarter could run 10 times longer than a battery of the same weight can, powering laptops, cell phones, radios, and other electronic devices. It could also dramatically lighten the load for people who can’t connect to a power grid, including soldiers who now must carry many pounds of batteries for a three-day mission. All this technology can come at a reasonable price. In the long term, mass production could bring the per-unit cost of power...

For patients living with heart failure and other health conditions, blood draws and diagnostic tests are commonplace in order to evaluate their condition. Often, though, chemical or physiologic changes silently cause damage that is not detected until much later. But what if in the future a tiny device, one the size of a nickel or significantly smaller, could be implanted in the patient to monitor and detect abnormalities, and could then relay data to physicians, or provide therapy on the spot, in real time? It may sound like science fiction, but this concept is moving toward reality at Physiologic Communications...

Proponents of the new Ballistic Deflection Transistor technology say it will produce computers that are faster, more powerful, and more efficient at using power. Scientists at the University of Rochester have come up with a new "ballistic computing" chip design that could lead to 3,000-gigahertz — that's 3-terahertz — processors that produce very little heat.Marc Feldman, professor of computer engineering at the University, characterizes the design, the Ballistic Deflection Transistor (BDT), as radical. "There's a real problem for standard transistors to keep shrinking," he says. The BDT doesn't have a capacitance layer that becomes problematic at very small scales the...

IBM servers use chips by AMD Sunnyvale company gets boost in battle with rival Intel Benjamin Pimentel, Chronicle Staff Writer August 2, 2006 ------------------------------------- IBM Corp. unveiled a line of business computers using Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s Opteron microprocessor on Tuesday, giving another boost to the chipmaker in its rivalry with Intel Corp. Tom Bradicich , chief technology officer of IBM's systems and technology group, said the Armonk, N.Y., company has embarked on a major expansion of its relationship with AMD by introducing Opteron-based servers. The roll-out of five computer systems and blade computers follows the announcement in May by...

Intel aims to reclaim market dominance with new chip Jun 26 4:37 PM US/Eastern US computer chip maker Intel began shipping a speedy, power-efficient processor it claimed would turn the tables on arch-rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). "We're back to a position we are used to having, undeniable leadership in the area of performance," Intel Vice President Tom Kilroy told a briefing of analysts and the press in San Francisco. "It's an exciting day. Our end customers were waiting for this." Kilroy touted its freshly released Xeon 5100 series chips as the "fastest dual-processor ramp" in Intel's history. The chips,...

Michael Fister has come to India not to save money but to make money. He has seen opportunity budding at Beceem Communications, a young chip design company tucked into a few floors of a building in a bustling residential area of Bangalore. He has watched it surge at Wipro, one of India's outsourcing giants. And Fister has spotted a burst of opportunity at MindTree, an R&D and consulting firm that is building a 15-acre campus west of downtown Bangalore, a few kilometers away from streets choked with shanties. Fister runs Cadence Design Systems, a $1.3 billion (sales) vendor of software...

<p>Researchers at International Business Machines Corp. say they have built a simple electric circuit on a single, cylindrical molecule of carbon known as a "carbon nanotube," potentially a key step toward one day creating a faster successor to silicon-based chips.</p>

Utah has offered its largest economic incentive ever - an estimated $15 million - to high-tech giants Micron Technology Inc. and Intel Corp., which plan under a joint venture to add 1,850 new jobs in Lehi over the next 18 months to two years.    Members of the Governor's Office of Economic Development Board on Friday unanimously approved the incentive from the state's tax rebate program, which typically is reserved for companies that have not yet decided where they will expand. The board awarded the incentive even though the two companies' IM Flash Technologies partnership said months ago it would expand...

Saying gun manufacturers should take steps to track guns, a Boston city councilor is proposing that global positioning technology be installed in firearms. Councilor Rob Consalvo wants to put a tracking device into newly manufactured guns and have legal gun owners retrofit their firearms so owners and police can locate and retrieve stolen guns the same way police use a computer chip to locate stolen cars. ''Let's use that same technology to track weapons so we know where they are when they're stolen or bought illegally," he said. ''I think it's a common-sense idea." Consalvo has asked Springfield-based Smith &...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Forgetting computer passwords is an everyday source of frustration, but a solution may literally be at hand -- in the form of computer chip implants. With a wave of his hand, Amal Graafstra, a 29-year-old entrepreneur based in Vancouver, Canada, opens his front door. With another, he logs onto his computer. Tiny radio frequency identification (RFID) computer chips inserted into Graafstra's hands make it all possible. "I just don't want to be without access to the things that I need to get access to. In the worst case scenario, if I'm in the alley naked, I...

Advocates of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) make increasingly strained arguments that the state has a moral obligation to provide health insurance for underprivileged children. That moral obligation rests on social justice theories which posit that access to publicly funded health insurance is fundamental to human dignity and therefore an imperative. Former Lt. Governor Bill Ratliff has entered the fray on the side of CHIP, arguing in a recent speech (reprinted by The Austin American Statesman) that support for CHIP, a government-run program, rests on certain biblical teachings, and accuses those legislators who oppose increased funding and revenue to...

OMAHA, Neb. - Researchers studying infectious diseases, such as AIDS, may be able to find answers more quickly thanks to a new tool that lets them see how a Rhesus monkey's 20,000 genes respond. That tool, called a gene chip or microarray, was developed with the help of researchers at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in roughly half the time and cost of previous gene chips of humans and mice, said John Harding, with the National Center for Research Resources at the National Institutes of Health. The gene chip for the Rhesus macaque monkey will be especially useful because...

According to WebMD, which was reported on CNN this week, "The chip is about the size of a grain of rice and contains a 16-digit verification number that is picked up by a scanner that emits a small amount of radio frequency that activates the chip and transmits the number back to the scanner. A similar implantable microchipping system has been used in pets and livestock for identification purposes. VeriChip is recommended for insertion in the triceps, between the elbow and the shoulder of the right arm. The chip is inserted in a brief outpatient procedure using a local anesthetic."...

The British government is preparing to test new high-tech license plates containing microchips capable of transmitting unique vehicle identification numbers and other data to readers more than 300 feet away. Officials in the United States say they'll be closely watching the British trial as they contemplate initiating their own tests of the plates, which incorporate radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags to make vehicles electronically trackable.

Public health attorneys in California have potato chip makers in their sights for not listing a cancer-causing chemical present in many brands.

When I was a child (growing up in Southern California)...there lived an old lady down the street...just like in every neighborhood in the country. Just like in every neighborhood....her house was a little ratty looking. Overgrown with weeds...grass...bushes...and in need of a painting. Just like in every neighborhood.....us kids were convinced that it was because she was a witch (or something like it)......none of us wise enough (or smart enough) to realize it was because she was a little old lady...and lived alone...that the house looked like that. One day ,as kids (especially dumb ones) will do, we called her...

Bomber the dog has gone underground. He was given a new home in a new town with a new family, even a new name. "He's in the doggy witness protection program," Jill Parnham said. Parnham and the 2nd Chance Pet Rescue chose to pay $5,000, as stipulated by a small claims court ruling, rather than surrender the Labrador mutt to the family who lost him last year. That much money could buy a purebred champion, possibly a multiple champion "with super breeding potential" in the world of show dogs, said Judythe Coffman, a longtime breeder, author and American Kennel Club...

BEAVER, Okla. - James Pratt has a chip on his shoulder -- a cow chip. The local fire chief is ready to defend his title Saturday at the World Champion Cow Chip Throwing Contest. About 150 people usually compete in the event, choosing from about 230 cow chips. Each contestant gets two throws, with the longest distance winning. Pratt throws with an overhand, baseball-like motion. "I've seen people throw like a discus and under their leg," he said. "They've tried everything." He says he doesn't practice but takes care selecting his chips, looking for those that are about 6 inches...

March 21, 2005 10:02AM "We can take someone's thought and put it on a screen," says Tim Surgenor, chief executive of Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems, manufacturer of the device, which is called BrainGate Neural Interface System. A Foxborough, Mass., company has developed technology that plugs a human brain into a desktop computer, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems has developed BrainGate, a product aimed at enabling quadriplegics to do things like surf the Web, write e-mails, play video games and operate TV remotes and telephones just by thinking. "We can take someone's thought and put it on a screen," said...

A little electronic capsule, smaller than a dime, could be one of the biggest technological advances in how we share and store private medical records. It may also be one of the most controversial. Known as the VeriChip, it is a microchip that is implanted under a person's skin, and then scanned with a special reader device to reveal important medical data about that person. Applied Digital, the Florida-based company that makes the VeriChip, hopes the implant will revolutionize how doctors obtain medical information, particularly in emergency situations. Theoretically, if a person can't speak, medics could scan that person...

SUTTER, Calif. (AP) - The only grade school in this rural town is requiring students to wear radio frequency identification badges that can track their every move. Some parents are outraged, fearing it will take away their children's privacy.

Dubbed a "supercomputer on a chip," the Cell microprocessor has until now been long on ambition but short on specifics. At a technical conference in San Francisco, the three electronics giants described a chip that could provide ten times the performance of the latest PC chips and churn through many tasks at once. Aimed squarely at the "digital home" market highly sought-after by Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news), the Cell initiative, which has been in development since 2001, is viewed by some as a formidable, if fledgling, competitor to the world's largest chip maker. While IBM showed off prototypes of...

This is my first post so I hope I got it right. This is breaking here in San Anonio. A single engine plane has been forced down at Stenson Field south of San Antonio. Homeland Security, DPS and SAPD are on the scene. They are waiting for a Chinese tranlator but they have Chinese illegals in custody and said that the pilot was someone Homeland Security has been looking for. I'll post more as it comes available.