Yorkshire slang guidebook for docs

This is too wild!

Doctors Get Guide to Yorkshire Slang
Fri Oct 8, 7:19 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Help is at hand for foreign doctors working in Yorkshire whose patients complain of sore "lugholes" or say they're feeling "jiggered" and can't stop "gipping".

Health officials in Doncaster, South Yorkshire have compiled a guide of local dialect and slang to help a group of seven Austrian doctors -- all fluent English speakers -- better understand their sometimes thickly accented patients.

"We recruited these doctors because of a shortage in Britain and though they all speak very good English they've struggled with the local dialect," health authority spokesman Ian Carpenter said on Friday.

"The guide includes some terms that are quite vulgar, but the doctors have found it very useful and it's also helped them integrate into life in the area," he added.

The Austrians, among the thousands of recent overseas recruits into Britain's National Health Service, will now know that "lugholes" are ears, feeling "jiggered" means exhausted and "gipping" is vomiting.

Other terms include "doofer" for penis, "tackle" for testicles and "popped his clogs" for dead.
"We're looking to hire more doctors from Spain so the guide will be all ready to help them too," Carpenter said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=857&e=18&u=/nm/20041008/od_uk_nm/oukoe_odd_britain_doctors

1918 flu re-created!

Scientists resurrect killer genes from 1918 flu pandemic
Wed Oct 6, 2:29 PM ET

PARIS (AFP) - Scientists working in top-security labs say they have recreated pathogens from the 1918 flu pandemic, the greatest plague of the 20th century, in a bid to find out why this strain was so extraordinarily lethal.

Using reverse genetic engineering, the US team took two key genes from the 1918 virus and slotted them into human flu viruses to which lab mice were known to be immune.

The two genes code for a spike-like molecule called haemagglutinin (HA), which binds to specific receptors on the surface of cells in the body, and another protein, neuraminidase (NA).

The mice were injected in the nose with the recombinant viruses.

Within three days, mice that had been exposed to the HA gene were mortally ill. Post-mortems showed the virus had rampaged through their lungs, producing inflammation and haemorrhaging characteristic of the symptoms induced by the 1918 outbreak.

At least 20 million and perhaps as many as 50 million people died in the 1918-1919 pandemic, the highest toll of any disease in the last century.

Scientists say that the disease leapt to humans by mutating from bird flu, possibly after passing through pigs, which are able to harbour both human and avian viruses and thus allow them to swap genes as the viruses reproduce.

For that reason, experts are deeply concerned that the avian flu that has broken out in poultry flocks in parts of Southeast Asia may acquire genes that will make it highly infectious as well as lethal for humans.

The researchers, led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, stress that the experiment is only conclusive for lab mice, not humans.

Nevertheless, they say, it adds strongly to suspicions that what made the type A 1918 virus strain so extraordinarily vicious was the unique profile of its HA gene.

That finding opens up good avenues for diagnostic tools for spotting emergent viruses with this genetic signature, thus tackling an outbreak in its early stages.

"Once the properties of the (1918) HA gene that gave rise to its lethal infectivity are better understood, it should be possible to devise effective control measures and to improve global surveillance networks for influenza viruses that pose the greatest threat to humans as well as other animal species," the authors say.

The study is published on Thursday in Nature, the British science weekly.

A previous study into the 1918 strain, published in Science in February, also pointed the finger at HA, theorising that only minor changes in its structure were needed for it to start binding with human cells as well as bird cells.

The latest research takes this a step forward, for it actually recreated the suspect gene and tested it on animals.

In order to prevent their creation from escaping into the open, Kawaoka's team carried out the genetic resurrection at a Biosafety Level Four facility -- the most secure level -- at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Canada and at an "enhanced" Level Three lab at the University of Wisconsin.

By some estimates, the 1918 pandemic, called "Spanish flu" in the probably erroneous belief that it began in Spain, infected up to a billion people, which was half the world's population at the time.

The strain was especially lethal for healthy young adults, killing many of the World War I troops who had survived trench warfare, but leaving the very old and the very young -- the more usual victims of flu -- unscathed.

The reason for this is unclear. One theory is that the immune system reacts differently at various stages of life, and that young people may have been particularly vulnerable to an uncontrolled response by cytokines, the proteins that play a big role in causing inflammation.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1508&e=7&u=/afp/health_flu_biotech

Ethiopia demands treasure return

I love Ethiopia...

Ethiopia Demands Looted Treasure Return

2 hours, 4 minutes agoBy ANTHONY MITCHELL, Associated Press Writer

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) is morally obligated to return to Ethiopia sacred objects and ancient artifacts looted by British troops more than a century ago, a leading scholar on Ethiopia said Tuesday.

Blair — scheduled to arrive in Ethiopia on Wednesday to explore new ways of helping Africa — should repatriate rare religious books and manuscripts and hundreds of other Ethiopian treasures, historian Richard Pankhurst told The Associated Press.

"Blair was not guilty of looting the treasures, but he is guilty of not returning them," said Pankhurst, who was honored this year by Queen Elizabeth II (news - web sites) for his services to advance Ethiopian studies.

British troops took many of the sacred objects and artifacts after annihilating the Ethiopian army at the Battle of Maqdala in 1868.

The most important items include a gold crown and chalice belonging to Emperor Tewodros II, some 350 manuscripts, 10 tabots or altar slabs, and religious crosses.

The British Library and British Museum, the Royal Library at Windsor Castle and the Victoria and Albert Museum hold most of the items. Britain's Royal family possesses six religious manuscripts, said to be the finest examples of Ethiopian manuscripts in the world.

The most valuable item is one of two copies of the Kebra Negast — or Glory of Kings — Ethiopia's holy book held in the British Library.

The 25-million-strong Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the nation's government have been pressuring Britain to return the items, which groups backing Ethiopia's claim value at $3 billion.
Britain says the items may be repatriated only through a parliamentary vote. However, others argue they could be returned on permanent loan without a vote.

Pankhurst said he will give Blair a letter calling for the return of the treasures.

"This looting was sacrilege in as much as it was looted from a church," said the 76-year-old historian, who has lived in the Horn of Africa nation for four decades.

During his three-day trip to Ethiopia, Blair is to attend the second session of his Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa. He has promised to focus on the plight of Africa and climate change during his chairmanship of the Group of Eight industrialized nations next year.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041005/ap_on_re_af/ethiopia_britain_artifacts_1

No accounting for taste

This, coming from the man who felt Angelina Jolie wasn't good enough for him, the man who, along with Angelina's father, is responsible for her loathing and distrust of men, isn't surprising. After all, isn't Billy Bob the absolute apex of high culture and decent manners?

By SEAN HAMILTON
and DEREK BROWN

HOLLYWOOD star Billy Bob Thornton has created Much Ado in the acting world by branding William Shakespeare "bulls**t".

The heavily-tattooed American actor, 49, whose films include Bad Santa and Armageddon, launched an astonishing attack on the Bard.

He compared the legendary English playwright's work to corny soap operas.

He said: "I think Shakespeare's overrated. It's bulls**t. I'd never go and see a Shakespeare play. Who'd want to see me in Hamlet?

"Who cares? I don't know why actors do it. Shakespeare is just a bunch of soap operas.

"It's not that I don't understand it. But people think if you speak with an English accent it somehow makes you smarter.

"I don't believe in all the flowery language all of his plays are just a series of soap operas.

Billy Bob, who plays a foul-mouthed Father Christmas in the Santa comedy, likened works such as Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet to US daytime drama Days Of Our Lives.

His rant will infuriate classical acting fans like screen legend Al Pacino, who plays Shylock in a new film of The Merchant Of Venice.

Eccentric Billy Bob has famously been divorced five times, most recently from actress Angelina Jolie.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004461322,00.html

Mexican volcano

Mexico's 'Volcano of Fire' Spews Lava

Fri Oct 1, 2:27 PM ET

By GUILLERMO ARIAS, Associated Press Writer

YERBABUENA, Mexico - Western Mexico's "Volcano of Fire" unleashed a towering column of smoke and ash Friday, after ropes of burning, orange lava poured from its peak overnight.

A light coating of ash dusted nearby communities that are home to about 600 people. Authorities were on heightened alert but said they had no plans to order evacuations.

"The volcano is very active but has not yet reached a risk level that would prompt an evacuation," said Melchor Urzua, director of emergency response teams for Colima state.

Known in Spanish as "Volcan del Fuego," the 12,533-foot-high mountain straddles the border of Colima and Jalisco states, 300 miles west of Mexico City.

Earthquakes (news - web sites) and explosions of hot rock within the volcano began Wednesday, provoked by the collapse of a dome that formed recently in its center. Small landslides tumbled down the volcano's northern and western slopes. Lava flowed Thursday night and early Friday morning.

"The incandescent material won't affect nearby communities because it's running off into valleys," said Jorge Sapien, a spokesman for Jalisco emergency teams.

A major eruption in 1999 sent glowing rock three miles down its slopes and fired a plume of ash more than 5 miles high.

In 1913, an explosion created a crater 1,650 feet deep, blasted fast-moving flows of hot ash down the volcano's slopes and rained ash on Guadalajara, 75 miles to the north.

Vulcanologists consider the Colima volcano to be one of the most active and potentially the most destructive in central Mexico.

It has erupted violently dozens of times since its first recorded eruption in 1560.