Tag Archives: ohio

Stun Guns Not Safe for Citizens, But Benefit Police, Study Finds

EAST LANSING, Mich. — The use of stun guns by police significantly increases the chances of citizen injury, yet also protects the officers more than other restraint methods, according to the most comprehensive research to date into the safety of stun guns in a law enforcement setting.

William Terrill, lead researcher on the project and Michigan State University criminologist, said the federally funded research presents a dilemma for police agencies weighing use of the controversial weapon. Nationally, some 260,000 electronic control devices, or stun guns, are in use in 11,500 law enforcement agencies. (more…)

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Safe Sleep Environments Key to Preventing Many Infant Deaths, MU Researcher Says

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Since 1992, the government’s Back-to-Sleep Campaign has encouraged parents to place infants on their backs to sleep. Still, more than 4,500 infants die unexpectedly during sleep each year in the United States. Now, a University of Missouri injury prevention researcher says that safe, separate sleep environments for infants are critical to preventing sudden unexpected infant deaths (SUIDs).

“Many of these SUIDs are due to unsafe sleep environments, and these deaths are totally preventable,” said Patricia Schnitzer, an associate professor in the MU Sinclair School of Nursing. “The safest place for infants to sleep is on their backs in their own cribs without soft bedding.” (more…)

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Rare Animal-Shaped Mounds Discovered in Peru by MU Anthropologist

*Anthropology Helps Us Understand the Past and Allows for a Deeper Understanding of the Future.*

COLUMBIA, Mo. — For more than a century and a half, scientists and tourists have visited massive animal-shaped mounds, such as Serpent Mound in Ohio, created by the indigenous people of North America. But few animal effigy mounds had been found in South America until University of Missouri anthropology professor emeritus Robert Benfer identified numerous earthen animals rising above the coastal plains of Peru, a region already renowned for the Nazca lines, the ruined city of Chan Chan, and other cultural treasures.

“The mounds will draw tourists, one day,” Benfer said. “Some of them are more than 4,000 years old. Compare that to the effigy mounds of North America, which date to between 400 and 1200 AD. The oldest Peruvian mounds were being built at the same time as the pyramids in Egypt.” (more…)

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USGS Releases New Assessment of Gas Resources in the Marcellus Shale, Appalachian Basin

The Marcellus Shale contains about 84 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas and 3.4 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas liquids according to a new assessment by the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS).

These gas estimates are significantly more than the last USGS assessment of the Marcellus Shale in the Appalachian Basin in 2002, which estimated a mean of about 2 trillion cubic feet of gas (TCF) and 0.01 billion barrels of natural gas liquids. (more…)

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Ecologist: Up-and-Coming Forests Will Remain Important Carbon Sinks

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The aging forests of the Upper Great Lakes could be considered the baby boomers of the region’s ecosystem.

The decline of trees in this area is a cause for concern among policymakers and ecologists who wonder whether the end of the forests’ most productive years means they will no longer offer the benefits they are known for: cleansed air, fertile soil, filtered water and, most important to climate change analysts, carbon storage that offsets greenhouse gas emissions. (more…)

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Spitzer Sees Crystal ‘Rain’ in Outer Clouds of Infant Star

PASADENA, Calif. –– Tiny crystals of a green mineral called olivine are falling down like rain on a burgeoning star, according to observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

This is the first time such crystals have been observed in the dusty clouds of gas that collapse around forming stars. Astronomers are still debating how the crystals got there, but the most likely culprits are jets of gas blasting away from the embryonic star. (more…)

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