Reducing the Risk of a Shark Encounter: Advice to Aquatic Recreationists

The relative risk of a shark attack is very small but, risks should always be minimized whenever possible in any activity. The chances of having an interaction with a shark can be reduced if one heeds the following advice:

• Always stay in groups since sharks are more likely to attack a solitary individual.
  
  
• Do not wander too far from shore --- this isolates an individual and additionally places one far away from assistance.
  
  
• Avoid being in the water during darkness or twilight hours when sharks are most active and have a competitive sensory advantage.
  
  
• Do not enter the water if bleeding from an open wound or if menstruating --- a shark's olfactory ability is acute.
  
  
• Wearing shiny jewelry is discouraged because the reflected light resembles the sheen of fish scales.
  
  
• Avoid waters with known effluents or sewage and those being used by sport or commercial fisherman, especially if there are signs of bait fishes or feeding activity. Diving seabirds are good indicators of such action.
  
  
• Sightings of porpoises do not indicate the absence of sharks --- both often eat the same food items.
  
  
• Use extra caution when waters are murky and avoid uneven tanning and bright colored clothing --- sharks see contrast particularly well.
  
  
• Refrain from excess splashing and do not allow pets in the water because of their erratic movements.
  
  
• Exercise caution when occupying the area between sandbars or near steep dropoffs --- these are favorite hangouts for sharks.
  
  
• Do not enter the water if sharks are known to be present and evacuate the water if sharks are seen while there. And, of course, do not harass a shark if you see one!

Reducing the Risk of a Shark Encounter: Advice to Aquatic Recreationists

Side Effect Revealed: Heart risk found in leukemia drug

Since its introduction a few years ago, the cancer drug imatinib has given patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia an unprecedented chance at long-term survival. But studies of the drug in people and mice reveal an unexpected risk of heart failure lurking beneath imatinib's benefits.

A research team led by Thomas Force of Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia evaluated 10 patients who suffered moderate-to-severe heart failure while taking imatinib, which is marketed as Gleevec by the drug company Novartis. In all 10 patients, none of whom had had previous heart problems, their heart's blood-pumping efficiency decreased after 1 to 14 months on the drug. When the researchers examined heart tissue from two of the patients, they found cell abnormalities characteristic of heart damage.

In a second study, Force's team gave imatinib to healthy mice. After 3 weeks, those mice showed a deterioration in heart contractions, the researchers report in the August Nature Medicine. The mice received drug doses similar—adjusted for size—to those prescribed for people.

"I don't think anyone would have expected this drug to have any cardiotoxicity," says Force.

About 90 percent of chronic myelogenous leukemia patients treated with imatinib survive for 5 years or longer. Before the drug was approved in 2001, average survival was less than 5 years.

Imatinib also treats a rare stomach cancer called gastrointestinal stromal tumor.

The drug stops the leukemia by inhibiting a cancer-causing two-protein combination called Bcr-Abl. The new study pinpoints Abl inhibition as the factor that leads to the heart failure. Although the protein's role remains unclear, Abl may be essential in maintaining cardiac health, says Force.

Only 1 to 5 percent of patients taking imatinib will develop heart failure, Force estimates, but he adds that long-term data are needed to establish a more precise figure.

One reason that earlier studies of imatinib didn't reveal the cardiac risk might be that instead of attributing heart problems to the drug, physicians assigned them to hypertension, diabetes, or other ailments common in the leukemia patients, Force says.

Heart problems may not have shown up in early mouse studies because rodents metabolize imatinib quickly, he says.

Side Effect Revealed: Heart risk found in leukemia drug

At An Underwater Volcano, Evidence Of Man's Environmental Impact

Scientists studying hydrothermal vents, those underwater geysers that are home to bizarre geological structures and unique marine species, have discovered something all too familiar: pollution.

A University of Florida geologist is among a team of geologists that is the first to observe “anthropogenic influence” in hydrothermal deposits, according to an article in the June issue of the journal Marine Geology. Examining deposits retrieved from the site of an underwater volcano near Italy, they discovered lead that did not come from the underlying rocks or from any possible natural source in the nearby region or anywhere in Europe.

Instead, they traced the lead to an Australian lead mine thousands of miles away.

“I guess we can speculate that this is yet another piece of evidence of how widespread our disturbance in the environment is: the fact that we can influence natural hydrothermal systems,” said George Kamenov, a faculty member at the UF geological sciences department.

Hydrothermal vents form when seawater seeps through cracks in the deep ocean floor, gets heated by magma, or molten rock, then streams upward back into the sea. The vents have aroused a great deal of scientific interest since they were discovered in 1977, in part because of their remarkable appearance but mainly because they host unusual creatures and offer natural laboratories to study the formation of metal ores. Some have tall and elaborate “chimneys” formed from minerals disbursed by the hot water as it leaves the ocean floor. “Black smokers,” the hottest hydrothermal vents, spew dark-looking iron and sulfide particles as they shoot up through seawater. Found throughout the world’s oceans, many vents even harbor eyeless shrimp, giant clams and other fauna rarely seen elsewhere.

At An Underwater Volcano, Evidence Of Man's Environmental Impact

Count Your Blessings -- and Your Money: Money Matters

I'd be the last person to tell you that money can buy happiness, but I'm fascinated by recent reports insisting that money isn't a major factor in whether or not people are happy.

Please.

Positive psychology (that's what academicians call the study of human happiness) is a hot field of research, and the folks at the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania have come up with an interesting questionnaire that's been getting a lot of press.

Yet nowhere in the 24-question Authentic Happiness Inventory does the issue of money -- or, more important, our desire for financial security -- merit a mention. Hmm.

A Conspicuous Omission

Given how expensive our lives are, how can money not be a factor? We have huge mortgages and tapped-out home equity lines of credit weighing on us. College tuition bills have never been more daunting. Our employers are less likely to give us a defined benefit pension, so the onus is on us -- and our 401(k)s -- to figure out how we'll be able to afford retirement. If we're lucky enough to get health insurance through our employer, the trend is for each of us to be responsible for a greater portion of the bill.

I would love to live in a world where authentic happiness was achievable solely from the richness of relationships, but I'm a realist. And the reality I see -- and that so many of you write to me about -- is one in which money plays into our ability to be truly happy.

Yes, I've heard about the study of lottery winners that showed they were not relatively happier than those who hadn't won the lottery, and the one reporting that folks on the Forbes 100 list (the wealthiest people alive) weren't much happier than the average American.

Those studies show that being filthy rich doesn't ensure happiness, but that's not something most of us have to contend with.

I'm talking about how your happiness is affected when you're worried about how you'll pay the bills at the end of the month, save for the future, and be able to afford to retire. In other words, how you'll make ends meet. When those worries are your reality, I think it's ridiculously hard to be authentically happy.

Happiness Is Income-Sensitive

Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks so. A survey conducted earlier this year by the Pew Research Center reports that, overall, just 34 percent of respondents are very happy.

But when you start to slice the findings by income, it gets very interesting: 49 percent of respondents with an annual family income above $100,000 say they are very happy. When income falls between $75,000 and $100,000, the very-happy contingent falls to 38 percent. Just 24 percent of those with incomes below $30,000 said they were very happy.

I want to be quite clear: I'm in no way saying that money is all that matters. But I'm so tired of how scared everyone is to admit that money does in fact make a difference in the quality of our lives.

A Family Affair

Most of you would probably say that what makes you truly happy is your family and the love you share in your relationships, and I couldn't agree more. But money comes into play in those relationships, too.

When I talk about money this way to a group, invariably someone comes up to me afterward and give me a "tsk, tsk" look and says, "Suze, you are so wrong. Money isn't the key to life, this is!" At which point their wallet flies open and they show me a photo of their family.

That's when things get interesting, because I start asking them questions: Did you take that photo with your own camera? It looks like a beautiful beach; was the photo taken on a family vacation? Are those braces I see on the two teenagers? Do you hope to help those beautiful kids go to college?

As their heads bob in successive "yes" nods, I ask them how they provide all of that for their family. That's when they understand that I had it right.

Richer, But Not Happier

At the risk of repeating myself, I totally agree that family and friends are vital to our well being; without meaningful relationships, there's no chance of ever being truly, authentically happy. That's why, every Saturday night, I end my CNBC show with the following words: "People first. Then money. Then things."

But money does have a place at the table. If you don't have money to buy things, you're going to be very frustrated. It's just that simple.

How we handle the money we have also plays into our happiness. The Pew survey points out that over the past few decades, the percentage of Americans who say they're happy hasn't changed much (it hovers at around one-third of the population), while at the same time the average per capita income has doubled in inflation-adjusted dollars. So we have more money, but we're not much happier on average.

A paradox? Far from it. My sense is that we while we're making more money, we aren't making more of the money we make. We have a ton of debt, and we have to worry about saving for retirement in a way that our parents and grandparents never did. And as many of you know, it's really hard to boost your happiness quotient when you've got a lot of money worries.

Count Your Blessings -- and Your Money: Money Matters

Lobster Caught "Half Cooked" in Maine

July 20, 2006—Batman fans will remember Two-Face, the villain with a mug that's half handsome and half gruesome. Recently a Maine lobsterman caught a different kind of two-faced prey—a lobster that looks half raw and half cooked.

Alan Robinson of Steuben, Maine, hauled up this two-toned lobster last week while bringing in his catch near the town of Bar Harbor.

Half of the animal is mottled brown, while the other is bright orange—the color lobsters turn after they've been boiled.

In his 20 years of catching the crustaceans, Robinson says, he has never seen anything like it.

"I thought someone was playing a trick on me," he told the Bangor Daily News. "Once I saw what it was … it was worth seeing."

He wanted others to see it, too, so Robinson donated his unusual catch to Maine's Mount Desert Oceanarium, where experts were able to shed some light on the find. Two-toned lobsters, they explain, are rare but not unheard of.

The shells of American, or Maine, lobsters usually sport a combination of yellow, red, and blue pigments. But the animals grow symmetrically, with each half of the body developing independently of the other.

In the case of Robinson's catch, half of the lobster's shell was lacking the blue pigment, giving it the appearance of having been cooked to a turn.

All this makes Robinson's fifty-fifty find one for the record books, the Oceanarium's staffers say.

The aquarium has received only three two-toned lobsters in 35 years, they note, and the odds of finding one that's exactly half and half is about 1 in 50 million.

Lobster Caught "Half Cooked" in Maine