">|
This is the category for the University of Sheffield, in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Refresh this list to see the latest articles.
|
From Wikinews, the free news source you can write. The Arts Tower, University of Sheffield. Image: Chemical Engineer. Sister projects
|
Uncategorized | Admin March 9, 2023 | 
Comments (0)
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
An autopsy performed on Tuesday revealed that the late Boyzone singer Stephen Gately “had died of natural causes”.
Officials from the Spanish island of Majorca that Stephen had suffered from an accumulation of fluid on the lungs, or as it is known in scientific terms, a pulmonary edema. The 33-year-old singer was found dead on a sofa in the lounge of his apartment. He had been out of the accommodation for the night while he was partying with Andrew Cowles, who was his partner.
There was a court hearing held earlier today in Majorca. The hearing only lasted for a short time. The judge had decided that the family of Stephen Gately would be allowed to take his body back to the Republic of Ireland, the country in which Gately grew up and had lived in, by plane. After discovering Stephen’s death, the other members of Boyzone took a plane flight to Majorca, so as to comfort Andrew Cowles. They have now flown back to their homes.
Uncategorized | Admin March 8, 2023 | Comments (0)
Thursday, December 18, 2008
A team of eight transplant surgeons in Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, USA, led by reconstructive surgeon Dr. Maria Siemionow, age 58, have successfully performed the first almost total face transplant in the US, and the fourth globally, on a woman so horribly disfigured due to trauma, that cost her an eye. Two weeks ago Dr. Siemionow, in a 23-hour marathon surgery, replaced 80 percent of her face, by transplanting or grafting bone, nerve, blood vessels, muscles and skin harvested from a female donor’s cadaver.
The Clinic surgeons, in Wednesday’s news conference, described the details of the transplant but upon request, the team did not publish her name, age and cause of injury nor the donor’s identity. The patient’s family desired the reason for her transplant to remain confidential. The Los Angeles Times reported that the patient “had no upper jaw, nose, cheeks or lower eyelids and was unable to eat, talk, smile, smell or breathe on her own.” The clinic’s dermatology and plastic surgery chair, Francis Papay, described the nine hours phase of the procedure: “We transferred the skin, all the facial muscles in the upper face and mid-face, the upper lip, all of the nose, most of the sinuses around the nose, the upper jaw including the teeth, the facial nerve.” Thereafter, another team spent three hours sewing the woman’s blood vessels to that of the donor’s face to restore blood circulation, making the graft a success.
The New York Times reported that “three partial face transplants have been performed since 2005, two in France and one in China, all using facial tissue from a dead donor with permission from their families.” “Only the forehead, upper eyelids, lower lip, lower teeth and jaw are hers, the rest of her face comes from a cadaver; she could not eat on her own or breathe without a hole in her windpipe. About 77 square inches of tissue were transplanted from the donor,” it further described the details of the medical marvel. The patient, however, must take lifetime immunosuppressive drugs, also called antirejection drugs, which do not guarantee success. The transplant team said that in case of failure, it would replace the part with a skin graft taken from her own body.
Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, a Brigham and Women’s Hospital surgeon praised the recent medical development. “There are patients who can benefit tremendously from this. It’s great that it happened,” he said.
Leading bioethicist Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania withheld judgment on the Cleveland transplant amid grave concerns on the post-operation results. “The biggest ethical problem is dealing with failure — if your face rejects. It would be a living hell. If your face is falling off and you can’t eat and you can’t breathe and you’re suffering in a terrible manner that can’t be reversed, you need to put on the table assistance in dying. There are patients who can benefit tremendously from this. It’s great that it happened,” he said.
Dr Alex Clarke, of the Royal Free Hospital had praised the Clinic for its contribution to medicine. “It is a real step forward for people who have severe disfigurement and this operation has been done by a team who have really prepared and worked towards this for a number of years. These transplants have proven that the technical difficulties can be overcome and psychologically the patients are doing well. They have all have reacted positively and have begun to do things they were not able to before. All the things people thought were barriers to this kind of operations have been overcome,” she said.
The first partial face transplant surgery on a living human was performed on Isabelle Dinoire on November 27 2005, when she was 38, by Professor Bernard Devauchelle, assisted by Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard in Amiens, France. Her Labrador dog mauled her in May 2005. A triangle of face tissue including the nose and mouth was taken from a brain-dead female donor and grafted onto the patient. Scientists elsewhere have performed scalp and ear transplants. However, the claim is the first for a mouth and nose transplant. Experts say the mouth and nose are the most difficult parts of the face to transplant.
In 2004, the same Cleveland Clinic, became the first institution to approve this surgery and test it on cadavers. In October 2006, surgeon Peter Butler at London‘s Royal Free Hospital in the UK was given permission by the NHS ethics board to carry out a full face transplant. His team will select four adult patients (children cannot be selected due to concerns over consent), with operations being carried out at six month intervals. In March 2008, the treatment of 30-year-old neurofibromatosis victim Pascal Coler of France ended after having received what his doctors call the worlds first successful full face transplant.
Ethical concerns, psychological impact, problems relating to immunosuppression and consequences of technical failure have prevented teams from performing face transplant operations in the past, even though it has been technically possible to carry out such procedures for years.
Mr Iain Hutchison, of Barts and the London Hospital, warned of several problems with face transplants, such as blood vessels in the donated tissue clotting and immunosuppressants failing or increasing the patient’s risk of cancer. He also pointed out ethical issues with the fact that the procedure requires a “beating heart donor”. The transplant is carried out while the donor is brain dead, but still alive by use of a ventilator.
According to Stephen Wigmore, chair of British Transplantation Society’s ethics committee, it is unknown to what extent facial expressions will function in the long term. He said that it is not certain whether a patient could be left worse off in the case of a face transplant failing.
Mr Michael Earley, a member of the Royal College of Surgeon‘s facial transplantation working party, commented that if successful, the transplant would be “a major breakthrough in facial reconstruction” and “a major step forward for the facially disfigured.”
In Wednesday’s conference, Siemionow said “we know that there are so many patients there in their homes where they are hiding from society because they are afraid to walk to the grocery stores, they are afraid to go the the street.” “Our patient was called names and was humiliated. We very much hope that for this very special group of patients there is a hope that someday they will be able to go comfortably from their houses and enjoy the things we take for granted,” she added.
In response to the medical breakthrough, a British medical group led by Royal Free Hospital’s lead surgeon Dr Peter Butler, said they will finish the world’s first full face transplant within a year. “We hope to make an announcement about a full-face operation in the next 12 months. This latest operation shows how facial transplantation can help a particular group of the most severely facially injured people. These are people who would otherwise live a terrible twilight life, shut away from public gaze,” he said.
Uncategorized | Admin March 5, 2023 | Comments (0)
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
United States presidential candidate John McCain announced today that he is suspending his campaign and sought to postpone a scheduled debate with his opponent, Barack Obama, to focus on the country’s financial crisis and says that Obama should also suspend his campaign.
McCain said he would be asking president George W. Bush to call a meeting for members of Congress in order to support Bush’s controversial $700 billion bailout plan, but also said that there is no consensus for the proposal and it will not pass in its current form.
|
HAVE YOUR SAY
|
|
|
Is the financial crisis more important than the election? Do you think that the candidates should continue the debates?
|
|
|
Add or view comments
|
|
He called the crisis “historic,” stressing the need for legislation and warning of “devastating consequences”.
“I am calling on the president to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including Senator Obama and myself. It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem. It has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the administration’s proposal and I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands. We are running out of time,” said McCain during a press conference.
Early this morning, Obama had called McCain and asked for the two to put aside partisanship and focus on the economic troubles. The two agreed to issue a joint statement supporting an economic fix, just minutes before McCain made his announcement. Bush is scheduled to speak to the people of the U.S. in a televised speech at 9:01 PM EDT tonight.
Obama responded to McCain’s speech minutes later, confirming that he would still attend the debate. He expressed a desire for fairness to taxpayers and an objection to rewarding those responsible for the financial crisis. Both candidates have stated that they intend to put politics aside to work on the financial crisis. Obama said, a president “is going to have to deal with more than one thing at a time.”
The proposal comes in the wake of Congressional hearings where US Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have urged support of the measures proposed by the administration. Despite such appeals, both McCain and Obama have expressed skepticism over the proposed bailout, and the U.S. Congress has shown a noted concern that the measure may not benefit ordinary home owners as well as those on Wall Street.
Uncategorized | Admin March 4, 2023 | Comments (0)
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
A new law that proposes no spitting, swearing, or urinating in public passed its second reading in Calgary.
Calgary City Council is expected to pass it into law later this year.
Fines would range from $50 for carrying a visible knife or standing on public benches and $300 for urinating or defecating in public. People who spit would face a $100 fine and those who fight in city streets would pay a $250 ticket.
“You have to set the groundwork of expectations — mutual expectations — in order to be able to work well together, live well together,” said Ald. Madeline King, a councilor who represents part of Calgary’s inner city. “This is the right thing to do — this is a social contract between Calgarians that calls for a minimum amount of respect,” he said.
“Unless you have rules, things don’t work so well in terms of living together harmoniously,” said Ald. Madeleine King. “It’s not targeting the homeless, it’s targeting anyone who behaves in this way.”
It will come back to council for final approval next week.
City lawyers have concerns about enforcing some parts of the legislation.
Uncategorized | Admin March 3, 2023 | Comments (0)
Friday, January 12, 2007
The iPhone only made its appearance as a prototype and there have been controversies aroused.
The dispute has come up between the manufacturer of the iPhone (which was presented on Wednesday for the first time) — Apple Inc. — and a leader in network and communication systems, based in San Jose — Cisco. The company claims to possess the trademark for iPhone, and moreover, that it sells devices under the same brand through one of its divisions.
This became the reason for Cisco to file a lawsuit against Apple Inc. so that the latter would stop selling the device.
Cisco states that it has received the trademark in 2000, when the company overtook Infogear Technology Corp., which took place in 1996.
The Vice President and general counsel of the company, Mark Chandler, explained that there was no doubt about the excitement of the new device from Apple, but they should not use a trademark, which belongs to Cisco.
The iPhone developed by Cisco is a device which allows users to make phone calls over the voice over Internet protocol (VoIP).
Uncategorized | Admin | Comments (0)
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Bill Bernhardt is running for the Family Coalition Party in the Ontario provincial election, in the Kitchener Centre riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.
Please note that Bill provided his answers in “ALL CAPS”; due to the time constraints of this election coverage, it remains in this typographic style.
Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.
Uncategorized | Admin February 28, 2023 | Comments (0)
Saturday, October 16, 2010
US Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Todd Staples visited Orr Elementary school in Tyler, Texas on Wednesday to kick off National School Lunch week for the state. Commissioner Staples spoke to over 200 students during lunch about the importance of eating healthy. “During the old days, the Three R’s in school meant ‘Reading, ‘Writing and ‘Arithmetic’ […] but I want you students to remember the three E’s: Education, Exercise and Eating right,” he stated.
The Commissioner asked students a variety of questions about state trivia such as the names of the state bird, the state tree and the state fruit. Students who answered correctly were awarded prizes.
During a short press conference following, Commissioner Staples stated his concerns regarding the health of children in Texas: “Current indications are that over 30 percent of children in [the United States of] America are struggling with childhood obesity. Estimates indicate that this issue alone can cost this county one-billion dollars in healthcare costs per year in the future.” “I applaud the city of Tyler for taking the Fit City challenge,” the Commisioner further stated.
National School Lunch Week runs from October 11th–15th. President Barack Obama issued a presidential proclamation naming October 11th–15th the National School Lunch Week.
Uncategorized | Admin February 27, 2023 | Comments (0)
Friday, March 25, 2005
A U.S. District Court in Tarrant County, Texas, issued a summary judgment Thursday against Circuit City’s InterTAN Inc., requiring all 950 RadioShack stores in Canada to stop using the RadioShack brand in store signs, packaging, products and advertising after June 30.
RadioShack’s Canadian operations were spun off in 1986 to a new corporation, InterTAN Canada, which was purchased in 2004 by RadioShack’s major U.S. competitor, Circuit City. Shortly thereafter, RadioShack sued InterTAN, alleging it had violated the terms of their licensing agreement and seeking the right to terminate the contract early.
In a statement released following the judge’s ruling, RadioShack’s general counsel, Mark Hill, claimed: “The most important thing to us was to protect our brand position in Canada.”
Circuit City chairman and chief executive officer, W. Alan McCollough responded today in a press release seeking an appeal: “We respectfully believe the court has erred in the partial ruling entered yesterday and we will use every means of relief possible to exercise our rights under the agreements, including all appeal rights. The Company believes the positions taken by InterTAN are correct and believe InterTAN will ultimately prevail in the legal proceedings.”
Uncategorized | Admin | Comments (0)
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Elizabeth May has been elected leader of the Green Party of Canada today, winning the position with 2,145 votes or 65.34 per cent of ballot cast. She beat her nearest rival, environmental consultant and Green deputy leader David Chernushenko by a margin of almost 2 to 1. Jim Fannon, the third candidate, finished far back with only 29 votes. The new leader will replace Jim Harris, who stepped down after holding the position since 2003.
In her acceptance speech, May called on the federal government to give notice that Canada will withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement in order to force the United States to renegotiate the treaty.
May, a long-time environmental activist and former executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada takes over the party which received 4.5 per cent of the popular vote in the last federal election, enough to secure over $1 million a year in federal funding but not enough to elect any of its candidates to the Canadian House of Commons. Chernushenko won the highest vote percentage of any Green candidate in the January election winning 10% of the vote in Ottawa Centre.
“We draw pretty much equally from across the entire political spectrum,” Jim Harris told CBC News. “If you were a Progressive Conservative, as I was, where do you go? The Green party supports Kyoto. We were opposed to the war in Iraq and yet at the same time we’re fiscally responsible. This is something that’s attractive to people.”
“What we need to do is clearly build a method and a platform so that they are not voting for ‘none of the above’ but so that they are voting for ‘all my dreams,’ ” said May after her victory.
The race has brought new people to the party with membership rising from 5,517 to 8,694 in recent months.
Uncategorized | Admin February 25, 2023 | Comments (0)
