Living Today: Issues of modern living

NAVY TRAINING

A pilot program designed to teach sailors how best to protect ships in port had its origins in a computer-simulated decision-making course the New York City Fire Department developed to train and select its chiefs.

NYFD emergency services chief Ray Downey, who died with his crew in the collapse of the World Trade Center twin towers on Sept. 11, coordinated the program with the military.

On Oct. 12, 1999, suicide bombers believed linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaida network ran an explosives-filled rubber boat into the hull of an American destroyer, the USS Cole, that was on a refueling stop in the harbor of Aden, Yemen, killing 17 sailors. The following month, the Washington Post reported that 20 Cole crewmembers said the rules of engagement in effect at the time of the attack prevented them from firing on the boat.

The new course emanates from the effort to correct that deficiency. It, in turn, emerged from a Marine Corps combat squad leaders' course.

Retired Col. Gary Anderson said in the mid 1990s the Marine Corps -- as a part of an effort to develop a squad leader's course -- went to New York to see how both the Fire Department and Wall Street traders make fast-moving decisions. Anderson is director of the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities (CETO), a partnership between the Marine Corps' Warfighting Lab and the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, a nonprofit think tank in Arlington, Va.

Anderson said after the attack on the Cole, CETO did an extensive force protection study for the Navy. From Sept. 10 through Sept. 14, the center also conducted a pier-side force protection exercise designed to improve ship security at the Naval Base Ventura County in Port Hueneme, Calif.

"On the second day of the course, we sat there before we went out to the rifle range and watched the buildings come down, and Ray Downey and his whole crew were killed," he said.

CETO has turned over the curriculum of its Navy Force Protection Pilot Training Program to the office of the Chief of Naval Operations for funding and implementation, if adopted.

(Thanks to UPI's Lou Marano in Washington)

FEVER TESTING

State health officials in Hawaii are testing about three-dozen tourists they fear may have contracted dengue fever during their visits to the islands.

The Honolulu Star Bulletin reports 35 tourists were scheduled for blood tests or were awaiting the results to see if they were stricken with the tropical disease that has been stubbornly going around Hawaii for about a year. State epidemiologist Dr. Paul Effler said two of the worried tourists contacted his agency after private lab tests confirmed the presence of dengue fever. Effler said, however, that tests conducted by private labs were less accurate than the tests conducted by the Centers for Disease Control.

Fifteen other tourists have tested negative for dengue. There have been 98 confirmed cases of the mosquito-borne disease in Hawaii. All but four of the patients were Hawaii residents who lived primarily in rural areas. The four tourists with confirmed cases were members of a Texas family that had spent an extended vacation in the remote eastern Maui community of Hana.

The current outbreak of dengue fever is the first in Hawaii since World War II and apparently was started when a resident of the islands was infected while visiting the South Pacific or Asia. The infected host was then probably bitten in Hawaii by a mosquito that began spreading the ailment to the entire island chain.

Dengue fever's symptoms include a sudden onset of fever, rashes, vomiting and pain in joints and muscles. The disease can be fatal if the patient develops bleeding.

PAIN

Researchers have discovered a gene that controls pain transmission in the spinal cord that they say could herald a new approach to pain management.

The research is published in the Jan. 11 issue of the journal Cell. Investigators studying genetically engineered mice lacking the DREAM -- downstream regulatory element antagonistic modulator -- gene reported they found the mice had less sensitivity to pain compared to mice with the DREAM gene.

"This gives us a new way to think about pain and pain management" co-author Dr. Michael Salter, director of the University of Toronto Center for the Study of Pain, told UPI. "It's so different from the traditional approaches to pain management and, clinically, it offers the hope getting away from the side effects of currently used drugs, including altered cognition, addiction and gastrointestinal problems."

DREAM makes a protein that suppresses production of dynorphin, a naturally produced "feel good" chemical or endorphin. Dynorphin is produced in response to pain or stress. In the absence of the gene, the researchers found more production of dynorphin -- and therefore less pain -- in the region of the spinal cord where pain messages are transmitted and controlled.

The altered mice showed less sensitivity to all types of pain but no changes in any other normal functions. Also, they did not become addicted to the pain control chemicals that their bodies produced.

Typically, doctors use morphine and other opioids to stimulate cell receptors for endorphins -- or aspirin and aspirin-like drugs to block the pain related Cox enzymes. The DREAM gene binds directly to DNA and controls the production of a protein in the body's own and natural opioid system.

"Pain is a huge, silent public health crisis that is only beginning to be addressed by researchers," Salter said. "This declaration highlights a growing awareness of the vast problem of untreated or under-treated pain, and we hope this research will contribute in a significant way to current efforts by scientists to confront this challenge."

(Thanks to UPI's Bruce Sylvester from West Palm Beach, Fla.)

SPACE THE FINAL FRONTIER

Astronomers say they've identified almost a dozen previously unknown stars in the sun's immediate vicinity.

The team of American and Chilean scientists told the American Astronomical Society's winter meeting in Washington Thursday that the closest newfound star is 12 light-years away, and the farthest is 33 light-years. A light-year is the distance a beam of light travels in one year at 186,000 miles per second.

Todd Henry of Georgia State University in Atlanta, who led the team, said apart from one white dwarf, the stars are red dwarves. Both types are smaller and cooler than our sun. These are more significant, Henry said, than the less-massive stellar objects called "brown dwarves," which radiate heat as they cool instead of generating energy from nuclear fusion.

None of the new stars is close enough to replace Proxima Centauri, 4.2 light-years away, as the sun's next-door neighbor. Henry told a news conference that the findings will force a change in astronomers' views on the immediate celestial territory.

Astronomers rely on spotting "wobbles" in a star's motion to determine if the star has any planets. Henry said the newfound stars' relative dimness and low mass will make it easier to monitor them. Their closeness might even enable optical telescopes to spot planets directly.

(Thanks to UPI Science News Writer Scott R. Burnell)