Angelina Jolie: I had double mastectomy to reduce risk of breast ...

By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 7:24 EDT

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Angelina Jolie revealed Tuesday that she has undergone a double mastectomy to reduce her high risk of breast cancer, saying she is speaking out to encourage women address threats to their health.

Jolie, whose mother died of cancer at the age of 56, said she had managed to keep the issue quiet and continue working. Her medical procedures ended late last month. ?But I am writing about it now because I hope that other women can benefit from my experience,? she said.

The 37-year-old American actress wrote in an opinion piece entitled ?My Medical Choice? in The New York Times that she had chosen the procedure because she carries a faulty gene that increases her risk of both breast and ovarian cancer.

Jolie, one of Hollywood?s best-known faces and the partner of actor Brad Pitt, said that because of this gene, known as BRCA1, her doctors estimated she had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer.

?Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy,? she wrote.

?I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer is higher than my risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex,? Jolie wrote.

She said that on April 27 she completed the three months of medical procedures that the mastectomies involved.

Jolie said her chances of developing breast cancer are now down to five percent.

Jolie and Pitt have three adopted and three biological children.

?I can tell my children they don?t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer,? Jolie said.

Jolie described a several-stage surgical process, the main one of which is an operation that can take up to eight hours as the breast tissue is removed and temporary fillers are put in place.

?You wake up with drain tubes and expanders in your breasts. It does feel like a scene out of a science fiction film. But days after surgery you can be back to a normal life,? Jolie wrote.

The final phase of the process involved reconstruction of the breasts with implants, she said, adding: ?There have been many advances in this procedure in the last few years and the results can be beautiful.?

Jolie said Pitt has been a huge source of support.

?Brad was at the Pink Lotus Breast Center, where I was treated, for every minute of the surgeries,? she said, adding that ?we managed to find moments to laugh together.?

Jolie said she has only small scars after the ordeal, with nothing alarming for her children to see.

?On a personal note, I do not feel any less of a woman. I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity.?

Jolie, one of the world?s highest-paid performers, said the cost of getting tested for BRCA1 and another faulty gene, called BRCA2, is more than $3,000 in the United States and that this ?remains an obstacle for many women?.

She said she hopes women living under the threat of cancer will be able to get tested.

?Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of,? Jolie wrote.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who has been working with Jolie in the past few months in her role as UN special envoy for refugee issues to highlight the problem of sexual violence in conflict, said she was ?a brave lady?.

Hague and Jolie visited Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo in March and successfully joined forces at a meeting of G8 finance ministers last month to win a pledge to act against the use of rape as a weapon of war.

?She?s a courageous lady, a very professional lady. She?s done a lot of work with me in recent months and travelled with me through some difficult places in the Congo,? Hague told Sky News television.

?She gave no sign that she was undergoing such treatment. She?s a very brave lady not only to carry on with her work so well during such treatment, also to write about it now and talk about it. She?s a brave lady and will be an inspiration to many.?

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Source: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/14/angelina-jolie-i-had-double-mastectomy-to-reduce-risk-of-breast-cancer/

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Oil falls to near $95 as dollar strengthens

The price of oil fell to near $95 a barrel on Monday, reflecting the recent strengthening of the dollar against the yen and other major currencies.

By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark oil for June delivery was down 71 cents to $95.33 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 35 cents on Friday.

The stronger dollar is causing oil prices to fall, analysts said. The dollar has risen in recent days against the euro and last week passed the 100-yen mark for the first time in four years.

Since oil is traded in dollars, a stronger dollar makes crude and other commodities less appealing to investors with other currencies.

"This, like the stock market, ends up pulling a lot of money out of commodities and into more reliable risk," said Carl Larry, president of Oil Outlooks and Opinions, a research analysis firm.

An increase in OPEC's output, which grew by 280,000 barrels to 30.46 million barrels a day in April compared with March, also helped drag down prices by boosting concerns about excess supply.

"The oil market remains oversupplied, with US crude oil stocks at a record level," said a report from analysts at Commerzbank in Frankfurt.

Brent crude, which is a benchmark for many international oil varieties, was down 91 cents to $103 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

In other energy futures trading on Nymex:

? Wholesale gasoline fell 2.53 cents to $2.835 a gallon.

? Heating oil lost 1.09 cents to $2.8953 a gallon.

? Natural gas added 0.5 cents to $3.915 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/oil-falls-near-95-dollar-strengthens-121506568.html

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Photonic quantum computers: A brighter future than ever

May 13, 2013 ? Harnessing the unique features of the quantum world promises a dramatic speed-up in information processing as compared to the fastest classical machines. Scientists from the Group of Philip Walther from the Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna succeeded in prototyping a new and highly resource efficient model of a quantum computer -- the boson sampling computer.

The results will be published in the upcoming issue of the scientific journal Nature Photonics.

Quantum computers work by manipulating quantum objects as, for example, individual photons, electrons or atoms and by harnessing the unique quantum features. Not only do quantum computers promise a dramatic increase in speed over classical computers in a variety of computational tasks; they are designed to complete tasks that even a supercomputer would not be able to handle. Although, in recent years, there has been a rapid development in quantum technology the realization of a full-sized quantum computer is still very challenging. While it is still an exciting open question which architecture and quantum objects will finally lead to the outperformance of conventional supercomputers, current experiments show that some quantum objects are better suited than others for particular computational tasks.

The computational power of photons

The huge advantage of photons -- a particular type of bosons -- lies in their high mobility. The research team from the University of Vienna in collaboration with scientist from the University of Jena (Germany) has recently realized a so-called boson sampling computer that utilizes precisely this feature of photons. They inserted photons into a complex optical network where they could propagate along many different paths. "According to the laws of quantum physics, the photons seem to take all possible paths at the same time. This is known as superposition. Amazingly, one can record the outcome of the computation rather trivially: one measures how many photons exit in which output of the network," explains Philip Walther from the Faculty of Physics.

How to beat a supercomputer

A classical computer relies on an exact description of the optical network to calculate the propagation of the photons through this circuit. For a few dozen photons and an optical network with merely a hundred inputs and outputs, even today's fastest classical supercomputer is unable to calculate the propagation of the photons. However, for a boson sampling computer this ambitious task is within reach. The researchers met the challenge and built their prototype based on a theoretical proposal by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). "It is crucial to verify the operation of a boson-sampling computer by comparing its outcome with the predictions of quantum physics. Ironically, this test can only be performed on a classical computer. Fortunately, for small enough systems classical computers are still able to accomplish this," as Max Tillmann, first author of the publication, points out. Thus, the researchers successfully showed that their realization of the boson-sampling computer works with high precision. These encouraging results may lead the way to the first outperformance of classical computers in the not-so-far future.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/88QdRx7j5Xc/130513103803.htm

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GOP Probes Deeper Into Benghazi Review (WSJ)

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This Genius Flowchart Will Show You Exactly What to Watch on Netflix

The going gets tough on Netflix sometimes. Between the eight people sharing your account it's just not clear who has been marathoning Grey's Anatomy, and the recommendations are all over the place. How are you supposed to find something to watch?

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Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/clP24VyFjOM/this-genius-flowchart-will-show-you-exactly-what-to-wat-503497824

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Snowe presses for bipartisanship in new book

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) ? U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe describes a scene out of a Rockwell painting: With Washington crippled by a blizzard, President Barack Obama worked the week before Christmas with a fire roaring in the fireplace in the Oval Office. Outside the window, his daughters played in the snow with their dog.

Inside, Snowe writes in a new book, she delivered sad news to the president, whom she described as gracious.

The Maine Republican couldn't support Obama's health care overhaul because her ideas, solicited in more than a dozen calls and eight face-to-face meetings, were left out of the final bill. Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid wouldn't allow amendments. The bill passed on a straight party-line vote.

In her book, the now-retired Snowe writes about her 34 years on Capitol Hill that she says went from a place where parties worked to forge compromise to today's obstructionist politics and partisanship. The parties, she says, have become more interested in making each other look bad and focusing on re-election than doing what's best for the nation.

"I'm not here to suggest there was a golden era of bipartisanship," Snowe told The Associated Press in an interview Friday. "It's never easy to compromise, but you must. In the past we were able to work out our differences. Today, it's all about taking it to the next election."

The release of her book, "Fighting for Common Ground," on Tuesday coincides with an online push to get voters to turn up the heat on lawmakers through the Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonprofit think tank founded by Democrats George Mitchell and Tom Daschle and Republicans Bob Dole and Howard Baker. Weinstein Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group, is donating a portion of her book revenues to the organization.

"It's a place to gather frustrated Americans who want to make change in the way government works and to be a catalyst for change and a call to arms," Snowe said in an interview.

Snowe, a self-described centrist, retired from the Senate in January after deciding she could not be effective given the polarization of the parties that left her increasingly alone in the middle.

Her decision stunned the political world.

Just a week before her February 2012 announcement that she wouldn't seek a fourth term in the Senate, she'd attended fundraising events in New York. But she wrote that she'd been considering leaving the Senate for several months, confiding in her husband, former Maine Gov. John McKernan, and a handful of trusted aides.

Not even her campaign manager knew.

Working outside the Senate, Snowe plans to press for a number of changes to promote civility and compromise: filibuster reform, an open amendment process, elimination of secret "holds" on legislation, authorization of two-year budgets and an end to so-called Leadership PACs, among others.

In her book, she writes that there's plenty of blame for both parties and that she's disappointed that nothing changed after the election of Obama, who vowed to bring the parties together.

Instead, she writes, Obama let the Democrat-controlled Congress loose on the stimulus bill, upsetting conservatives. Then he left Republicans marginalized as Democrats worked on the Affordable Health Care Act, further fueling tea party activists. That allowed divisions between Democrats and Republicans to grow even greater.

"With little chance of cross-party agreement, legislating became guerrilla warfare, marked by cloture motions and filibusters, legitimate devices in the senatorial arsenal but hardly the path to well-crafted legislation to attract bipartisan support," she wrote.

Snowe, 66, came about her independence through being orphaned at age 9 and sent off to an out-of-state boarding school run by the Greek Orthodox Church. After returning to Maine, tragedy struck again at age 26 when her husband, Peter Snowe, a state lawmaker, died in a car crash. She ran for his seat and won, launching her political career.

Her life experience shaped her philosophy: "My concept of government's role in people's lives is that it is limited but legitimate, and essential when people have nowhere else to turn," she wrote.

By her last term, Snowe writes that a senator's willingness to reach across the aisle had become a "scarlet letter" instead of badge of honor. And her willingness to do so had led to frustration among her increasingly conservative Republican colleagues.

She got a chuckle from an episode during the markup of the president's health care bill in which she tripped and fell to the floor, hard enough for there to be a collective gasp in the room.

Perhaps it was telling that three Democratic senators hopped up to check on her. Reflecting on it, she doesn't read too much into the fact that no Republican colleagues jumped to action. But, she added, "It certainly was interesting symbolism of the time and moment."

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Online:

http://bipartisanpolicy.org/

http://www.fightingforcommonground.com/

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/snowe-presses-bipartisanship-book-124744058.html

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School lunchbox bans driving parents nuts - The Daily Telegraph

Marita Ishac and seven-year-old daughter Stephanie who has a nut allergy. Picture: Cameron Richardson Source: News Limited

PARENTS are in revolt over school lunchbox restrictions with four out of five complaining schools are overly concerned about food bought to school and one in three objecting to the banning of nuts.

Even the Allergy and Anaphylaxis Association says school-wide bans on nuts in lunchboxes aren't effective and the president of the Primary Principals Association Norm Hart says they are ''wrong'' and can't be enforced.

However Marita Ishac, the mother of seven-year-old Stephanie who suffers from a severe allergy to pistachio nuts, says nuts should be banned.

''The reaction comes on so quickly it's scary,'' she said.

''They should be more sensitive. If they want their kids to have nuts serve them at home,'' she said.

The widespread angst about school food bans was uncovered in a Galaxy survey conducted on behalf of health fund Medibank Private's 24/7 advice line for Food Allergy Week.

It found 79 per cent of the 1000 people surveyed believed schools were overly concerned about the food bought in by pupils and 30 per cent disagreed with banning nuts from packed lunches.

At the same time nearly 40 per cent of respondents admitted they wouldn't know the signs of someone suffering a serious reaction to food and 47 per cent said they wouldn't know what to do if it happened.

''Lunchbox restrictions are an acutely hot topic but this must not be allowed to dilute the seriousness of food allergies,'' Georgia Karabatsos, Medibank 24/7 Health Advice Line Medical Director says.

The president of the Allergy and Anaphylaxis Association Marita Said said there was a ''lot of hysteria'' about food bans and her organisation did not promote them.

''I think schools have thought this is the answer, they are petrified because we have had children die at school or on school camps,'' she said.

Such bans often saw children with allergies stigmatised and bullied and they allowed a handful of parents to focus on the ban rather than the restrictions of the child who had the allergy, she said.

Instead of a school-wide ban schools should look at implementing voluntary restrictions in the allergic child's class and only if they were too young to be fully aware of their diet restrictions, she said.

One in 10 children now developed a food allergy in their first year of life and schools should try to educate all students about allergy problems, how to read the signs and what to do if an emergency happened, she said.

The president of the Primary Principals Association Norm Hart said schools were taking more interest in what was in student's lunchboxes because they wanted parents to work in partnership with teachers to educate children about how to eat a healthy diet.

However, he said school wide bans on nuts were ''wrong'' because they gave a false sense of security to the families of children with an allergy and other parents.

''You can't enforce it, and if you say a place is free of whatever and its not you have a problem,'' he said.

Marita Ishac says she discovered Stephanie's allergy to pistachios when she reacted badly after eating a Lebanese sweet at the age of two.

''I hadn't given her nuts before and she had an itchy throat, then started blotching and her ears started to swell,'' she said.

Mrs Ishac now carries an epipen at all times and has given one to the school in case her daughteR has an attack while at school.

Marita Said says the anaphylactic reactions that are most dangerous are those where there are breathing difficulties or any swelling of the tongue or throat and onlookers should immediately administer an epipen or call an ambulance if they encountered a person suffering these symptoms.

More information on reducing risks for allergy sufferers can be found on the following websites: allergyfacts.org.au and foodallergyaware.com.au.

Source: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/lifestyle/health-fitness/school-lunchbox-bans-driving-parents-nuts/story-fni0diab-1226640620065

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