Month: March 2014

By Joseph J. Kolb ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (Reuters) – The Los Alamos National Laboratory has found a temporary home in Texas for roughly 1,000 barrels of radioactive junk left in limbo after a radiation leak led to a prolonged shutdown of New Mexico’s only nuclear waste disposal facility. Los Alamos, one of the leading U.S. nuclear weapons labs, said earlier this month it had been forced to halt shipments of its radioactive refuse some 300 miles across the state to the nation’s only underground nuclear repository, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, near Carlsbad. The repository has remained closed while the U.S. Department of Energy investigates the origins of a radiation leak that occurred there on February 14, exposing at least 17 workers to radioactive contamination.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sitting in a tub of warm water can relieve a mom-to-be’s pain during the early stages of labor, but actually giving birth under water has no proven benefit and may be risky, say recommendations for the nation’s obstetricians.

By Chris Vellacott and Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) – Britain's insurers will lose control of a market worth 15 billion pounds ($25 billion) a year under a surprise pension reform announced by the government, and will struggle to make up the hit to profits any time soon, according to analysts. This dismantles a captive market for annuity providers such as Legal & General and Resolution, which will now have to compete for pensions business against other investment products. Their shares dropped sharply on Wednesday, and analysts see little prospect of a rapid recovery. "This radical piece of legislation will destroy profitability in the highly lucrative annuity market, in our view," said RBC Capital Markets insurance analyst Gordon Aitken.

By Allison Bond NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Blocks, puzzles and other hands-on toys that have long been mainstays of children’s play are still best at teaching some skills needed for success, according to a research review. Although so-called “screen-based” entertainment – including computers, video games and cell phones – can keep young kids occupied, technology is less effective than more traditional toys in teaching spatial reasoning to preschoolers, the U.S. researchers say. And if they already have those (before they begin school), they are ahead of the curve,” said lead author Brian Verdine, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Delaware in Newark. Spatial reasoning, which is the ability to visualize and manipulate objects as they would appear in space, is important in many math- and science-oriented careers, including engineering, Verdine and his coauthors write in Trends in Neuroscience and Education.

Don Roese, 83, collapsed near a paramedic’s birthday celebration.

There are several similarities, and some major differences.