James Bond wins $6.5 million in lottery

Tom Brodbeck – James Bond Jr. of Vincennes, Ind. can afford to get an Aston Martin now after winning $6.5 million in the Illinois Lottery.

Bond Jr., 46, bought the winning ticket at the Bottoms Up Beer and Liquor in Lawrenceville Ill., across the border from his Indiana hometown.

“I’ve taken a lot of ribbing over the years because of my name,” said Bond. “I loved all the James Bond movies, especially those with Sean Connery, but that’s as far as it goes.” Bond’s father, James Bond Sr., 64, and mother, Lorna Kay Bond, 63, accompanied their son to the Lottery’s Springfield, Ill. headquarters on Wednesday, where Bond Jr. was presented an oversized Lottery check for $6.5 million from a Lottery representative.

Bond says he met with a CPA before claiming his prize, and developed a plan for making the money last and work for him and his family. Bond operates a seasonal, five-employee construction business, and may invest some of the winnings in his business.

… The winning numbers in the August 13 Lotto drawing were: 13-19- 27- 33- 39-43. Bond picked his own numbers, several of which have significance to him: 13 has always been his lucky number, and 27 and 33 were numbers he wore when he played high school and post-high school sports. Bond elected to receive his prize as a one-time payment of $4,529,616, less taxes.

via James Bond wins $6.5 million in lottery | wthitv.com.

Doctors’ and nurses’ hospital uniforms contain dangerous bacteria majority of the time, study shows

More than 60 percent of hospital nurses’ and doctors’ uniforms tested positive for potentially dangerous bacteria, according to a study published in the September issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official publication of APIC – the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.

A team of researchers led by Yonit Wiener-Well, MD, from the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, Israel, collected swab samples from three parts of the uniforms of 75 registered nurses (RNs) and 60 medical doctors (MDs) by pressing standard blood agar plates at the abdominal zone, sleeves’ ends and pockets.

The researchers at this 550-bed, university-affiliated hospital found that exactly half of all the cultures taken, representing 65 percent of the RN uniforms and 60 percent of the MD uniforms, harbored pathogens. Of those, 21 cultures from RN uniforms and six cultures from MD uniforms contained multi-drug resistant pathogens, including eight cultures that grew methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Although the uniforms themselves may not pose a direct risk of disease transmission, these results indicate a prevalence of antibiotic resistant strains in close proximity to hospitalized patients.

“It is important to put these study results into perspective,” said APIC 2011 President Russell Olmsted, MPH, CIC. “Any clothing that is worn by humans will become contaminated with microorganisms. The cornerstone of infection prevention remains the use of hand hygiene to prevent the movement of microbes from these surfaces to patients.”

“New evidence such as this study by Dr. Wiener-Well is helpful to improve the understanding of potential sources of contamination but, as is true for many studies, it raises additional questions that need to be investigated,” added Olmsted.

According to the World Health Organization, the risk of healthcare-associated infection (HAI) in some developing countries is as much as 20 times higher than in developed countries. Even in hospitals in developed countries like Israel, the site of this investigation, and the U.S., HAIs occur too often, can be deadly, and are expensive to treat. HAI prevention is therefore the best approach for patient safety.

via Doctors’ and nurses’ hospital uniforms contain dangerous bacteria majority of the time, study shows.

Hyperion: the largest bath sponge in the solar system

Looking like an extraterrestrial pumice stone and moving like a bumbling drunken uncle, Hyperion posed for photos on Thursday as the Cassini spacecraft zoomed by for the second closest pass in its history.

Hyperion is one of Saturn’s 62 known moons, but it is one of its more unusual satellites. The moon is highly irregularly shaped – in the solar system only Neptune’s moon Proteus is more irregular – and tumbles along its orbit, making it difficult for astronomers to predict what terrain Cassini would capture on its flyby.

The close encounter mapped new territory and could provide improved colour information to determine Hyperion’s composition. The new snaps from about 25,000 kilometres away also offer a better glimpse of the way shadows and light play off the surface under different conditions offering clues into its unusually porous, bath sponge-like texture.

via Short Sharp Science: Hyperion: the largest bath sponge in the solar system.

Weird, Birdlike Mystery Drone Crashes in Pakistan

It looks a bit like silver bird. It probably was used to spy on insurgents. And now it’s in the hands of the Pakistanis.

WIRED editor-in-chief Chris Anderson flags pictures of an unusual, unfamiliar drone that reportedly crashed crashed over southwestern Pakistan late last week. It’s a surveillance drone, with a camera attached — recovered from the crash but not apparently visible in this photo — rather than the larger, deathly flying robots that shoot missiles. This one looks tiny, with a wingspan not much longer than a man’s outstretched arms, and clearly light enough for a grown man to carry.

The Pakistani Frontier Corps in Baluchistan province recovered the drone. And they confidently declare it to be an “American surveillance unmanned aerial vehicle.” But as Anderson points out, it doesn’t look like anything the U.S. flies — or at least acknowledges flying. What’s the deal? …

via Weird, Birdlike Mystery Drone Crashes in Pakistan | Danger Room | Wired.com.

Coral could hold key to sunscreen pill

Scientists hope to harness coral’s natural defence against the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays to make a sunscreen pill for humans.

The King’s College London team visited Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to uncover the genetic and biochemical processes behind coral’s innate gift.By studying a few samples of the endangered Acropora coral they believe they can synthetically replicate in the lab the key compounds responsible.Tests on human skin could begin soon.

Before creating a tablet version, the team, led by Dr Paul Long, plan to test a lotion containing the same compounds as those found in coral.To do this, they will copy the genetic code the coral uses to make the compounds and put it into bacteria in the lab that can rapidly replicate to produce large quantities of it.Continue reading the main story “Start Quote Once we recreate the compounds we can put them into a lotion and test them on skin discarded after cosmetic surgery tummy tucks”

Lead researcher Dr Paul LongDr Long said: “We couldn’t and wouldn’t want to use the coral itself as it is an endangered species.”

He said scientists had known for some time that coral and some algae could protect themselves from the harsh UV rays in tropical climates by producing their own sunscreens but, until now, they didn’t know how.

“What we have found is that the algae living within the coral makes a compound that we think is transported to the coral, which then modifies it into a sunscreen for the benefit of both the coral and the algae.”

Not only does this protect them both from UV damage, but we have seen that fish that feed on the coral also benefit from this sunscreen protection, so it is clearly passed up the food chain.”

via BBC News – Coral could hold key to sunscreen pill.

Burning Man 2011, live video

Check it out here: Burning Man 2011, Live Video

U.S. Bancorp sues Bank of America over bad Countrywide mortgages

The lawsuits against Bank of America are piling up.

The latest comes from U.S. Bancorp, which wants Bank of America Corp. to repurchase poorly written mortgages sold by Countrywide Financial in 2005.

Bank of America bought Countrywide Financial Corp. in 2008.

The lawsuit, which was filed in New York on Monday, claims Countrywide sold U.S. Bancorp a pool of more than 4,000 loans originally valued at $1.75 billion. U.S. Bancorp claims Countrywide ignored its own mortgage underwriting guidelines when issuing those loans.

According to the complaint, Countrywide agreed to repurchase loans within 90 days if any of the statements made in the loan contract wound up being untrue. Those statements included an assertion that the loans complied with the bank’s underwriting guidelines.

U.S. Bancorp says Countrywide’s loans began to “become delinquent and default at a startling rate,” soon after it sold the loans. U.S. Bancorp has asked the court to ask Countrywide to repurchase either just the defective loans or all of the loans in the pool.

The nation’s largest bank is facing several other lawsuits. On Aug. 8, American International Group Inc. sued the bank for more than $10 billion, claiming Charlotte-based Bank of America deceived the insurer by selling it faulty mortgage investments. …

via FayObserver.com – U.S. Bancorp sues Bank of America over bad Countrywide mortgages.

Wildlife Conservation Society helps hatch rare Siamese crocodiles in Lao PDR

John Delaney – Working with the government of Lao PDR, the Wildlife Conservation Society has helped to successfully hatch a clutch of 20 Siamese crocodiles, a species threatened across its range by hunting, habitat fragmentation and loss, and other factors.

Hatched from eggs taken from the wild and incubated at the Laos Zoo, the baby crocodiles represent a success for a new program that works to save the Siamese crocodile and the wetlands and associated biodiversity of Laos’ Savannakhet Province.

The project is supported by the Savannakhet Province Agriculture and Forestry Office and MMG LXML Sepon.

“We’re thrilled at the prospect of augmenting the wild population of Siamese crocodiles with a new batch of healthy juveniles,” said Chris Hallam, Conservation Planning Advisor for the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Lao PDR Program and the crocodile project coordinator. “It’s a small but important step in helping to conserve a valuable part of the natural heritage of Lao PDR for the benefit of future generations.”

Launched in 2008 as the Crocodile Resource Management Plan, the project uses crocodile conservation as a means of protecting the larger landscape. The first phase of the project focused on surveys of crocodiles, the wetlands where they occur, and the livelihoods of local communities in Savannakhet Province. Survey teams located small numbers of crocodiles in several sites in the province’s river systems and wetlands.

The recently hatched eggs are part of the crocodile replenishment phase of the project, where eggs from wild nests are transported to captive settings in order to boost the survivorship of the clutches. The hatchlings will be released as second-year juveniles, when the reptiles are large and robust enough to avoid mortality in the wild.

The plan, say organizers, also relies on input and involvement from local communities, who will help promote the recovery of the Siamese crocodile and the habitat on which many livelihoods rely. …

via Wildlife Conservation Society helps hatch rare Siamese crocodiles in Lao PDR.