徐州大医院做胃镜的价格(徐州无痛胃镜检测价格) (今日更新中)

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the "habitable zone," a region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface, the U.S. space agency announced on Monday.The newly-confirmed planet, Kepler-22b, is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to Sun. The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Scientists don't yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding Earth-like planets.Previous research hinted at the existence of near-Earth-size planets in habitable zones, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Two other small planets orbiting stars smaller and cooler than Sun recently were confirmed on the very edges of the habitable zone, with orbits more closely resembling those of Venus and Mars.Kepler-22's star is a bit smaller than our sun, so its habitable zone is slightly closer in. The diagram shows an artist's rendering of the planet comfortably orbiting within the habitable zone, similar to where Earth circles the sun. Kepler-22b has a yearly orbit of 289 days. The planet is the smallest known to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a sun-like star. It's about 2.4 times the size of Earth."This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth's twin, " said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at the NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Kepler's results continue to demonstrate the importance of NASA's science missions, which aim to answer some of the biggest questions about our place in the universe."Kepler discovers planets and planet candidates by measuring dips in the brightness of more than 150,000 stars to search for planets that cross in front, or "transit," the stars. Kepler requires at least three transits to verify a signal as a planet."Fortune smiled upon us with the detection of this planet," said William Borucki, Kepler principal investigator at the NASA Ames Research Center who led the team that discovered Kepler-22b. "The first transit was captured just three days after we declared the spacecraft operationally ready. We witnessed the defining third transit over the 2010 holiday season."The Kepler science team uses ground-based telescopes and the Spitzer Space Telescope to review observations on planet candidates the spacecraft finds. The star field that Kepler observes in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra can only be seen from ground-based observatories in spring through early fall. The data from these other observations help determine which candidates can be validated as planets.Kepler-22b is located 600 light years away. While the planet is larger than Earth, its orbit of 290 days around a Sun-like star resembles that of Earth. The planet's host star belongs to the same class as Sun, called G-type, although it is slightly smaller and cooler.Of the 54 habitable-zone planet candidates reported in February 2011, Kepler-22b is the first to be confirmed. This finding will be published in The Astrophysical Journal.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Heart failure (HF) hospitalizations dropped 29.5 percent nationally over the past decade, according to a study by Yale physicians to be published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.The risk-adjusted rate of heart failure hospitalization fell from 2,845 to 2,007 per 100,000 person-years from 1998 to 2008 in a fee-for-service Medicare claims analysis by Dr. Jersey Chen of Yale University and colleagues.The team also found that the rate of hospitalization for black men dropped at a lower rate, and that one-year mortality rates declined slightly during that period, but remained high.HF imposes one of the highest disease burdens of any medical condition in the United States and the risk increases with age. As a result, HF ranks as the most frequent cause of hospitalization and re-hospitalization among senior Americans. HF is also one of the most resource-intensive conditions, with direct and indirect costs in the United States estimated at 39.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2010.The study showed that the HF hospitalization rates varied significantly from state to state. The decline in the hospitalization rate from 1998 to 2008 was significantly higher than the national average in 16 states and significantly lower in three states (Wyoming, Rhode Island and Connecticut).Chen and his team also found that risk-adjusted one-year mortality decreased from 31.7 percent to 29.6 percent between 1999 and 2008, a relative decline of 6.6 percent, with substantial variation in different states."Because of the substantial decline in HF hospitalizations, compared to the rate of 1998, there were an estimated 229,000 fewer HF hospitalizations in 2008," said Chen in a statement, adding that with a mean HF hospitalization cost of 18,000 dollars in 2008, this decline represents a savings of 4.1 billion dollars in fee-for-service Medicare."The overall decline in the heart failure hospitalization rate was mainly due to fewer individual patients being hospitalized with heart failure rather than a reduction in the frequency of repeat hospitalizations," said Chen.

BRUSSELS, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) --- The European Commission on Friday gave the green light to Microsoft's acquisition of voice and video communication provider Skype, thus removing the last hurdle in the process.According to a statement released by the Commission, "the deal would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (The EU plus Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway) or any substantial part of it."The Commission explained that it found that in the area of consumer communications, the parties' activities overlap in video communications, where Microsoft is active through its Windows Live Messenger.However, the Commission considered that there were no competition concerns in this growing market where numerous other players, including Google, were present.Skype was bought by eBay in 2005 at the price of 4.1 billion U.S. dollars, and sold out at 2.75 billion U.S. dollars in 2009. Microsoft declared to take over Skype at a cost of 8.5 billion dollars on May 10, 2011.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Researchers at St. Michael's Hospital in Canada have discovered a new function for an enzyme that may protect against organ injury and death from anemia, according to a study appearing Monday in the U.S. journal of the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences.Researchers found that when people have anemia, neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) -- an enzyme in nerve cells that produces nitric oxide, an important signaling molecule in the body -- increases the body's ability to respond, adapt to low oxygen levels and makes the body more efficient in delivering oxygen to tissues. They also found that levels of nNOS in the brain increased in anemic mice, and that the mice without this enzyme die earlier, and with higher hemoglobin levels."Identifying this mechanism may lead to new therapies and approaches to improving outcomes for anemic patients," said Dr. Greg Hare, a researcher at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of the hospital and one of the lead investigators of the study.Anemia occurs when blood has a lower than normal number of red blood cells or hemoglobin -- an iron-rich protein that carries oxygen from the lungs and heart to the rest of the body. Cells need oxygen to survive and to produce energy for all bodily functions. The condition has many different causes including infection (malaria, HIV, parasites), nutritional deficiencies (iron, folate, B12), genetic mutations, pregnancy, trauma and surgical blood loss."This research will help us identify when an anemic patient is at greatest risk for injury and death when undergoing surgery," said Hare. "Research is underway to test these findings in humans."

FUZHOU, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- China is considering to set up a special fund to finance arts creation and cultural performances in the latest move to buoy the development of the country's "soft power," a cultural official said Sunday.The fund, which is likely to be set up in 2012, will pool an initial capital of 200 million yuan (31.54 million U.S. dollars) from the government and private investors to support various forms of arts ranging from opera, philharmonic, ballet, to Chinese folk opera, said Tao Cheng, vice head of the arts department under the Ministry of Culture.Tao told Xinhua on the sidelines of an opera festival held in eastern city of Fuzhou that the fund will gradually expand to 800 million yuan in size over the years. He said the ministry has drawn up the draft and it will be deliberated and finalized.China's top leadership has recently attached greater importance to improving the country's cultural soft power after decades of economic growth. In the sixth plenary session of the 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China last month, the nation's decision-makers focused on cultural issues. It was the first time in 15 years that the plenary sessions have put the spotlight on culture.The Ministry of Finance had said it would increase fiscal expenditure on museums, cinemas, music companies, publishing houses and other cultural institutions, and ensure that public spending on the sector grows faster than fiscal income growth. Support policies will be targeted, with a focus on improving the cultural institutions' market competitiveness, it said.

来源：资阳报