普宁治疗白癜风尖端技术(梅州白癜风治疗哪家最有效) (今日更新中)

NEW YORK, July 15 (Xinhua) -- A Gallup survey released on Friday found a total of 59 percent of Americans support a ban on smoking in all public places.The July 7-10 survey among 1,016 national adults showed a change in the public's attitude toward public smoking ban. In 2001, when Gallup first asked about a ban on public smoking, 39 percent were in favor, an attitude that stayed roughly the same through 2007.At the same time, the poll also found that fewer than two in 10 people supported the idea of making smoking totally illegal.According to the American Lung Association, 27 states plus the District of Columbia have passed comprehensive smoke-free laws. A New York City law bans smoking in virtually all public places, including outdoor plazas and beaches.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiroe may have an unprecedented dengue fever epidemic next summer, its mayor warned on Wednesday.The increasing number of dengue fever cases in the past few months shows similarities to the months predecing the 2002 and 2008 epidemics, Mayor Eduardo Paes said."Everything points to a new cycle of the disease, certainly the worst epidemic in Rio's history," he said.In 2008, Rio registered some 250,000 cases of dengue fever, with 174 people confirmed dead from the disease. In 2002, Rio had some 290,000 dengue fever cases and 91 people died.In efforts to halt the spread of the disease, Paes has declared a state of alert and is determined to take a series of measures to eliminate the habitat of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which transmits dengue fever through its bite.Paes also announced an increase in the number of health care units for dengue fever patients. The total cost of a dengue prevention and combat program, which is expected to last until April 2012, will reach 42 million reais (26.25 million U.S. dollars).There is no vaccine against dengue fever, but Brazilian scientists are currently working on one which will immunize against four types of the disease.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- The rates of new lung cancer cases in the United States dropped among men in 35 states and among women in six states between 1999 and 2008, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).Among women, lung cancer incidence decreased nationwide between 2006 and 2008, after increasing steadily for decades.The decrease in lung cancer cases corresponds closely with smoking patterns across the nation, the report said. In the West, where smoking prevalence is lower among men and women than in other regions, lung cancer incidence is decreasing faster. Studies show declines in lung cancer rates can be seen as soon as five years after smoking rates decline.The report also noted that states that make greater investments in effective tobacco control strategies see larger reductions in smoking; and the longer they invest, the greater the savings in smoking -- related health care costs. Such strategies include higher tobacco prices, hard-hitting media campaigns, 100 percent smoke-free policies, and easily accessible quitting treatments and services for those who want to quit."Although lung cancer among men and women has decreased over the past few years," said CDC Director Thomas Frieden in a statement. "too many people continue to get sick and die from lung cancers, most of which are caused by smoking. The more we invest in proven tobacco control efforts, the fewer people will die from lung cancer."Lung cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer, and the leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Cigarette smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke cause most lung cancer deaths in the United States.

WASHINGTON, July 7 (Xinhua) -- Space shuttle Atlantis will soar into the sky Friday on NASA's 135th and final flight. Its scheduled return to Earth later this month will mark the end of NASA's 30-year space program.Since its onset with the launch of space shuttle Columbia, the program has been seen as a cheap, safe and reliable way for space exploration.Despite its great contributions to U.S. manned space flight, it has also left some grave and tragic lessons, making its termination inevitable.HIKING COSTSLaunched in 1972 by then President Richard Nixon, the shuttle program aimed to provide a new system of affordable space travel and proved to be NASA's most enduring project in its 50 years of existence.In 1981, shuttle Columbia made its first shuttle flight for two days. It was the ultimate hybrid and the first reusable spacecraft.Launched like a rocket and gliding back to Earth like an airplane, space shuttles not only can act as a space taxi to carry astronauts, but have the muscle of a long-distance trucker to haul heavy machinery.The spaceship boasts more than 3,500 subsystems and 2.5 million parts and is nine times faster than a speeding bullet as it climbs heavenward. That versatility, however, has translated into higher costs.NASA originally estimated the program would cost about 90 billion U.S. dollars. However, its actual cost stands at about 200 billion dollars, compared with the 151 billion dollars spent on Apollo which took Americans to the moon in 1969.In an article in Technology Review, John Logsdon, former head of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, drew a direct connection between the ravenous shuttle budget and the lack of other large advances in manned space flight."By operating the system for 30 years, with its high costs and high risk, rather than replacing it with a less expensive, less risky second-generation system, NASA compounded the original mistake of developing the most ambitious version of the vehicle," he wrote."The shuttle's cost has been an obstacle to NASA starting other major projects," he added.HIGH RISKIn terms of safety, the shuttles have never been as reliable as their designers had envisioned.On average, one out of every 67 flights ended up with fatal accidents. Based on the rate of deaths per million miles traveled, the space shuttle is 138 times riskier than a passenger jet.Seven astronauts onboard died when Challenger exploded about a minute after launch in 1986. Nearly two decades after the tragic blast, a new catastrophe descended when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated moments before landing in 2003, killing another seven spacemen.Again, the shuttle program was shelved for more than two years as NASA stepped up efforts to make it safer. But experts say the fundamental problem related to shuttles' safety cannot be solved due to their "birth defects.""It is in the nation's interest to replace the Shuttle as soon as possible," concluded the panel that investigated the 2003 Columbia accident.

WELLINGTON, July 29 (Xinhua) -- Scientists from around the world will gather on the east coast of New Zealand next week to discuss proposals to study "silent" earthquakes by drilling into the seabed.Silent quakes, also known as slow slip events, occur on the boundaries of the earth's tectonic plates, where one plate dives under another in areas known as subduction zones, and are slower than normal quakes, taking weeks or months to occur rather than seconds, and are rarely felt on the surface.About 70 scientists from 10 countries will convene in the city of Gisborne, which lies near the site of a major fault line and where scientists first identified silent earthquakes in 2002.Slow-slip events were first discovered with the advent of new measurement technologies on the west coast of Canada about 15 years ago and have since been recorded at about a dozen locations around the world, including four sites around New Zealand, said a spokesperson for New Zealand's Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS Science).About eight slow-slip episodes have occurred under Gisborne since 2002 at roughly two-year intervals.Scientists have proposed numerous theories to explain the phenomenon, but testing the theories is difficult as silent quakes happen many kilometers below ground."The best way to understand the true cause of slow-slip events is to drill into and sample the area on the plate boundary fault where they are known to occur, and monitor a whole range of physical and chemical properties at the plate interface," said Laura Wallace, of GNS Science.

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